


Call It A Draw

by shadowscribe



Series: Drown Me In Love [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Background Relationships, Before the Dawn, Blow Job, Confessions, Cullen loses his pants, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Josephine is a card shark, Lyrium Addiction, Lyrium Withdrawals, Minor Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Minor Sexual Innuendo, Multi, Polyamory, Romance, Threesome, Vaginal Sex, Varric takes bets, What Pride Had Wrought, Wicked Grace, adoribull like to do it in random places, mostly canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 18:24:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8764045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowscribe/pseuds/shadowscribe
Summary: Regular lyrium is soft and sweet in his head, a faint familiar refrain that hums just beneath his skin and just beyond his reach. Regular lyrium tempts and seduces, whispering promises of power and invincibility. It is a beautiful knife, a delicate poison, dancing upon his ear that makes him burn and ache.In contrast, red lyrium has all the subtly of a battering ram. 

---Cullen joins the Inquisitor in her hunt for Samson and as the final showdown with Corypheus' forces looms closer Varric strives to remind Catheryn that she is more than a title.





	1. Same Song, Different Verse

**Author's Note:**

> "Some nights, I stay up cashing in my bad luck  
> Some nights, I call it a draw"  
> \- _Some Nights_ , Fun

The song is relentless. It pulls at him, whispering and tugging along the edges of his consciousness with claws that rip and tear. He can feel himself unraveling, the warring repulsion and want shredding him until he’s nothing but wet, fluttering ribbons held together by armor and willpower. They passed the first piece of yesterday morning but it has been singing to him for days. Now they are surrounded by it. The earth is broken and shattered beneath their feet, entire stretches of land and forest lost to the violent eruption of the crimson shards that perpetually shroud the ground in a low-lying red miasma. He can feel it like the itch of a festering wound deep inside his bones and just like with a festering wound he aches. His fever, a fairly constant fixture in his life now, rises for the first time in months, leaving his skin feeling too tight and hot to the touch even though he frequently shivers so hard that his teeth rattle in his skull.

_There will be red lyrium_ , Catheryn had warned when he had insisted on joining the mission.

_I’ll endure_ , he’d responded simply and he would. If it meant taking out Samson and leaving Corypheus with one less power to throw at Catheryn during their inevitable confrontation then he would do endure and do it happily. Besides, it isn’t like this is his first run in with red lyrium. He called Kirkwall his home for nearly a decade, some of that occurring _after_ Meredith got turned into a statue sheathed in the stuff, and between the Red Templars and Corypheus himself Haven had been overrun with it by the end.

He hadn’t remembered it being quite like this – _sounding_ quite like this. So either his memory of it has dulled considerably or over three years without a drop of lyrium passing his lips has changed the nature of the song and made it just that much worse. Regular lyrium is soft and sweet in his head, a faint familiar refrain that hums just beneath his skin and just beyond his reach. Regular lyrium tempts and seduces, whispering promises of power and invincibility. It is a beautiful knife, a delicate poison, dancing upon his ear that makes him burn and ache.

In contrast, red lyrium has all the subtly of a battering ram and his body is feeling it.

Catheryn notices. Her keen eyes miss little, especially when it concerns those she loves. “We’ll destroy it on our way back,” she explains quietly, her concerned gaze sweeping over him as she pulls the Fiend in next to his forder. “They tend to make a lot of _noise,”_ she waves her hand vaguely, “when they die and I didn’t want to give Samson any warning that we are coming.”

He nods and immediately regrets it, the entire world spinning around him. “I understand,” he murmurs, tightening his grip on the reins until he can’t feel his own fingers.

“Are you alright?” she asks softly and he nearly weeps in relief at the touch of her hand on his arm, the warmth spreading out in a sudden rush that eases the vicious ache in his muscles down a notch or two.

“I’ll be fine,” he tells her because it’s as close to an acceptable answer he can get without lying. And he will be, after they get Samson.

“You are not the song,” Cole’s soft voice murmurs in his ear as he finishes retching behind a scraggly evergreen bush. Cullen jumps and his hand going to his sword as he nearly falls over, his body not quite ready for standing and jumping about. “It sings itself louder hoping to trap you but it does not know the right notes.”

“Shit, Cole! What have I said about…” he pauses, wincing, and hastily turns away.

“I’m sorry,” the spirit boy apologizes calmly, as if there is nothing strange about seeing the Commander of the Inquisition have to stop mid-sentence and spit a mouthful of bloody bile onto the ground. Of course, given that this is not the first time Cole has come to him in his moments of weakness it likely is normal for him. Maker, knows sifting around in his head probably doesn’t help matters. “I tried to get your attention but the song is too loud. It makes it hard to hear anything else.” The young man’s nose, just barely visible beneath the floppy brim of his hat, wrinkles in distaste.  

Cullen feels a surge of sympathy in his chest. “Yes, it does,” he agrees quietly.

“Twisting, shrieking, devouring,” Cole whispers as he cants his head to the side so that he can look up at the taller man from beneath the brim of his hat. “It eats and eats and eats but it is never full. Always seeking, it sees the scars the leash left on you. It wants to eat you too.”

“To the void with that,” Cullen snarls instinctively, forcing himself to take a deep breath past the rawness of his throat. He’s worked too bloody hard to beat this – or to at least get to the point where it is endurable because he is under no delusions that the wanting will ever go away – to give into it now. Especially this twisted, nightmarish form of it. He cannot understand how so many have willingly fallen to it. There is no beauty in it.

“They feel its power and think it will share,” Cole answers his thoughts. “Grabby, greedy, guzzling - they don’t understand until it is too late. It doesn’t matter once they’re red inside.”

“Maker have mercy on their souls, the poor bastards,” Cullen mutters as he takes the water skin that Cole is holding out to him. He doesn’t want to drink. He’ll probably just throw it up but the pained cords of his throat are raspy and dry, rubbing together like drought ridden brush, just waiting for that spark that sends the whole thing up in flames.

He needed have worried. It tastes of elfroot, the bitter tang washing away the taste of sickness as he rolls it around his mouth. It soothes and the cools the heated, catching pain in his throat as he swallows, settling gently in his stomach. “Catheryn sent you, didn’t she?” he asks after he takes another sip.

“Cold sweat beading on your brow, ashen cheeks burning red as you shake beside her. Wild and scrambling in the darkness. _What have I let him do?_ She wonders if she’s lost you with the bringing.” Cole shakes his head gently, a smile curving his lips. “Shiny and new, echoes of laughter on an empty riverbed. Not for sailing, but safer. She doesn’t know. You should tell her.”

Pale blue eyes fix on him expectantly, staring until Cullen nods his head carefully. “I will,” he promises, having no idea exactly _what_ he is promising to tell. He understands Cole better than most, though not nearly so well as Catheryn and Solas, but his aching brain is in no shape right now to sift through the spirit-boy’s well intentioned words and tease out their meaning. That will have to come later. Or sooner, pending how badly he needs to try and distract himself from the roaring in his skull. “Thank you, Cole,” he adds as he returns the water skin.

“I just want to help.”

_Would that the world was filled with more like you_ , Cullen thinks as he glances sidelong at the strange, compassionate spirit that has attached himself to their lives. Wordlessly he lets the lanky young man throw his arm around his shoulders and help him back to camp.


	2. Before the Dawn

The Shrine of Dumat had once been a beautiful, towering piece of architecture. Even now it rises out of the landscape, its tumbled stone walls a foreboding testament to powers long past. From where he stands in the shadows of the main gate he can see the temple proper, still relatively in one piece, standing at the end of a paved, column lined lane. The whole complex sits within walls that even now in their disrepair could be considered impressive.  Not quite as tall or thick as those at Adamant but it’s close.

Thank the Maker the front gates are unlocked.

Though, further reflection makes that less reassuring than he would have liked.

“This is it,” he mutters as the gates quietly drift shut behind them. “The heart of Samson’s command.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t think to have someone look here sooner,” Catheryn looks perturbed as she eases her staff from her back and rolls it from hand to hand. “Maker’s fucking balls, I’m slipping.”

Cullen spares her a quick, quizzical look as he pulls his sword from its sheath, the comfort of its weight falling into his hand soothing the tremors that have wracked his limbs all day.  “What?”

“I believe she is referring to the fact that Corypheus was once a priest of Dumat,” Solas explains, his own staff glowing, trailing sparks of blue-white fire as his touch activates the runes that adorn it. Even from here he can hear the magic of it, a lyrical note that reminds of him regular lyrium but isn’t. There is a similar sensation when Cassandra uses her Seeker based powers.  “It is perhaps natural, then, that his trusted gather in the former temples.”

“Really?” It makes sense, he supposes, but it feels odd to him. Cullen doesn’t know exactly how Corypheus feels about Dumat but he can guess. It’s not a pretty picture the magister’s words paint.

“This is a sad place, filled with old pain,” Cole whispers as he creeps along the edge of the wall, all but disappearing into the shadows, “People spoke here and something listened, until it didn’t.”

“That seems to be the nature of gods,” Catheryn sighs. “They’re there until they’re not. Let us hope that Samson, at least, is still in residence.”

Her words shock him right to the core, freezing his feet to the cold stone beneath his feet. That Samson might not even here, after all the time he has spent hunting for him, is terrifying to contemplate. “Maker,” he breathes a prayer as they start forward. “Tell me he hasn’t fled.”

“I suppose we’ll find out,” Catheryn shrugs at the same time as Thom warns in a low voice,

“Incoming!” 

“Alright folks, you know the drill. Try to keep them from inviting all their friends to the party at the same time,” Catheryn drawls as not one but two different barriers settle over his skin. Only careful training keeps him from jumping in surprise at the unexpected gesture and even then… Solas smiles with one corner of his mouth, blue-gray eyes twinkling as Catheryn adds with a pointed look in his direction. “Be careful around the nodule covered ones. They like to blow their tops.”

_Blow their tops…?_

Cullen jerks his head. “Noted,” he acknowledges because the battlefield isn’t the place for questions. No doubt he’ll find out the meaning of her words first hand before the day is through.

All this takes place in the space of a moment, their small company exploding out from the temple compounds entrance just seconds after Thom’s warning.  Catheryn and Solas immediately peel away, each heading for high ground on opposite sides of the gate – better to view and direct the battle from and to give their magic a larger range. Cole is… Cole is gone. Utterly gone. Which means that he’ll be popping up when Cullen least expects it – with knives this time, instead of words.

“Left,” Thom grunts as they move forward, the warriors' steps falling into a well-practiced dance.

“Right,” Cullen acknowledges as his shield settles over his forearm, the final piece of a puzzle clicking into place. Doesn’t matter that the singing is so loud he can feel his ears ringing. Doesn’t matter that beneath his skin his muscles want to shake and fail him. They won’t. Not now. Not with the sword in his hand.

One step, then two, booted feet moving across the rubble and uneven paving stones with ease.  His entire world narrows to the step of his feet and the thrust of his sword as he lunges into the obvious opening made by the first red Templar’s crazed attack. Grimacing, he steps away from the sheet of tainted blood that spill’s from the things chest beneath the stab of his blade, a driving push that turns into a slash and he whirls away, following up the stroke with a blow of his shield that nails the monster on the side of the head. The beast staggers but doesn’t go down. Red lyrium will make even the weakest of men into tough bastards – and these were not the weakest of men to begin with.

Cullen raises his sword again but behind the corrupted Templar Cole appears out of shadows and smoke, knives flashing in his hands as he plunges them into the back of the creatures neck and rips upwards as he spins away. The pale fleshed thing, all covered in dark red nodules and sores, stares at him for a moment, its crimson eyes dulling as a veritable fountain of blood spurts away from its throat. The monstrosity’s head slips sideways, lolling over its shoulder, held to its body only by a half broken spinal cord.

This time, it stays down.

“That the best you got, you red bastards?” Thom taunts behind him, chuckling darkly amidst the shrieks of the monsters surrounding them and the clang of metal. Cullen smiles behind his helm and throws himself into the fray that awaits him. There’s another of those nodule covered… things… and a knight that looks normal enough, massive shield swinging towards Cullen’s torso.

So Cullen takes a deep breath and lets himself go.

 As a boy he used to hide in the carefully manicured thickets surrounding the Templars’ quarters behind Honnleath’s chantry and watch the Templars spar. No matter the chores that waited for him or the punishments that awaited for slipping away he couldn’t stop. He was drawn to the dizzying dance of blades and strength like a moth to the flame. It called to something inside him, waking some long slumbering beast in the depths of his soul that once woken could not be quelled. The moment one of the Templars had called him from his hiding place and put a wooden practice sword in his hand had made his entire existence sing – body, mind, and soul. His future had been decided that day, though he hadn’t known it. His da had though, the very second he’d set eyes on the wayward son he’d come to collect.

He can feel it even now – a soft, steady counterpoint to the red lyrium’s screams. It is not music, not a song, but he can hear it all the same. It beats in his veins and vibrates through his flesh, echoing down the line of his sword and across the surface of his shield. He hears it in the air around him – a soft throbbing that fills the air interspersed with steadier, heavier beats that mark the passage of other living things. If he has to he could fight blind: sword and shield and body weaving across the battlefield with nothing but vibrations to guide him. He’d done it exactly once, in Kinloch, right before his capture.

If it’s all the same to the Maker, he prefers to dance this dance with his eyes open.

“It’s nice to see that you haven’t lost your touch sitting behind that desk of yours,” Thom’s deep voice observes from behind him.

Cullen swears and plants his boot on the shoulder of another one of those nodule covered monsters and uses it to hold the still twitching body in place as he removes his sword from where he had driven it down between the monster’s shoulder blades. “Maker’s breath… you’ve left the keep proper even less than I in the past four months! And we spar together. Frequently. You know bloody well the form I’m in!”

The champion shrugs eloquently. “Eh. My experience there’s always a difference between the way that a man fights in the ring and the way he fights in the field.” Cullen grunts in agreement – he’s seen it too, to many times to count. He himself froze, momentarily, during his first official battle. Those days are long past. “Where’s Catheryn?”

“There.” Cullen points with his sword before he even looks. He doesn’t have to. He knows that the pointed tip of the blade will be arrowed directly at the Inquisitor’s moving form. He can feel her – not a set of beats like the rest of the world but more of a vibrating hum, like the tingle in the air after standing too close to a lightning strike. She’s advancing across the tumbled ruin of the compound’s battlements, her staff whirling about her shoulders and across her body in smooth, steady casts that bombard the monster ahead of her relentlessly.

She’s so bloody beautiful it takes his breath away.

“She feels  like brightness against the noise,” Cole observes, appearing out of nowhere between the two men, his head tipped up so that he can watch as Catheryn finishes the monstrosity not with magic, but with the blade hidden at the end of her staff. “I am sorry, Cullen, this time I did just appear.”

Thom snorts behind them, the laughter barely muffled behind his teeth. “You say the strangest things but…”

“…She does,” Cullen agrees softly, shaking his head to clear it. It doesn’t work. Maker, of course it doesn’t, but he tries anyway. Anything, always, to be free of the song screaming inside his head. Adjusting his shield to hide the sudden tremor that wracks his arm Cullen started toward the sudden explosion of magic up ahead – the air is suddenly so full of lightning that he can feel every hair on his body standing on end as a wall of jagged, sharp ice at least twice his height slices across the temple yard.

“Oh good,” Thom drawls from beside him, “There’s more.”

_Thank the Maker_ , Cullen thinks to himself, his relief at the other man’s words loosening some of the awful pressure that has been mounting in his chest and letting him breathe. It’s easier to ignore the lyrium’s song when he is fighting. There is no room when consumed by feeling the dance to listen to the music.

_More_ turns out to be a duo of knights and another handful of those _things_ that burst out of the rubble near the walls: frightened pheasants taking flight before the mage’s carefully aimed attacks. Cole disappears into a slight puff of shadow, vanishing when everyone is focused elsewhere – likely on Thom, who has thrown his arms wide open in blatant mockery and is roaring obscenities at them. If asked, before this moment, Cullen wouldn’t have thought that red Templars would be as susceptible to taunts as a normal opponent. After all, whoever they were before is gone, lost to the swirling madness of the red lyrium.  Apparently though, telling them that the Maker is using their new god to wipe Andraste’s ass is provocative enough to break through and Cullen finds himself laughing as he swings his sword.

The five of them reunite at the top of the crumbling stairs, a flurry of blades and whirling staffs. Part of him can’t believe that there haven’t been incidents of friendly fire and yet here, fighting in the midst of them, it comes as no surprise. Even in the chaos of battle they are aware of each other, weapons whirring and thrusting and flaring in movements that speak of countless hours of practice and experience. “What the fuck was that?” he gasps out as the last of the nodule covered things is reduced to little more than ash between the combined concentration of Solas and Catheryn’s magic. It hadn’t even tried to fight back. Instead it had hunched over its hands, protecting them as a violent, leaping glow began to form between its fingers, the air around it vibrating with force of whatever it called.

“Told you,” Catheryn mutters as she plants the butt of her staff against the stone and sucks in a deep breath, face twisting a grimace at the acrid smell of burnt flesh. “These things like to blow their tops.”

“Are they mages?” he asks, a sudden pit of fear opening in the bottom of his stomach. “Were they? Before…” before the lyrium took them. He stares at the fleshy, ashen pile.

 “No, they… _shit,_ ” Catheryn swears as the temple doors behind them suddenly swing open.

 Lurking behind them, massive hands raised, is something Cullen has never seen but only had described to him: a man who had not just been taken by the lyrium but used as a growing ground even as he continued to fight for its power. His body and limbs had long been lost to the crystal. In fact, the only bit of  humanity that remains is his head, nestled amongst the violent, gleaming shards of lyrium that have grown in some parody of a body. Maker, he’s seen a lot of terrible, monstrous things in his life, but this is one of the worst.

“ _Shit,”_ Catheryn growls again as she twists to the side and out of the warriors’ way. “I was hoping we wouldn’t run into any of _you_ ,” she mutters and she says it so softly that Cullen barely hears her. He doesn’t blame her. It is too close to Redcliffe, to Emprise – too close to all the horrors Corypheus wishes to inflict upon the world.

It isn’t until he happens to meet her gaze over the spearing red shards that make up one of the Behemoth’s legs, his entire body vibrating with the shock of burying his blade in nothing but corrupted lyrium, that he realizes how wrong he is. Sure, the encounter probably dredges up unpleasant memories but that’s not why she’d hoped to avoid the red lyrium monsters. The real reason is written blatantly across her face in strokes of concern and love and breathtakingly wild terror.

Him. She’s worried about _him._

And with good reason, apparently, because the sudden surge of the song in his head nearly brings him to his knees.

“Cullen!” Catheryn’s shout is nearly drowned out by the bone-vibrating clash of an unstoppable force meeting an unmovable wall just above his head, a shower of red lyrium shards raining around him but not touching him. It takes a second – a bloody second that they don’t have in the middle of battle – to realize the reason for that. It’s Thom’s shield and Thom’s body standing between Cullen and the pounding of the Behemoth’s weapon. “Cullen!” Catheryn’s voice creeps around the edges of the lyrium’s screaming as it cascades around him, breaking the song enough that he can suck a painful breath of air into his chest and surge to his feet.

“I’m alright,” he mutters, but he doesn’t know if anyone other than Thom is close enough to hear him as he hurtles around the other warrior’s protective stance.  “I’m alright,” he reassures quietly when the monster is finally down on the floor, the life inside the lyrium snuffed, so that the threatening shards now resemble nothing more than dull, cheap glass.

Catheryn doesn’t believe him but she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to.

_Maker, what have I done?_ Because he knows her. He fucking knows that this is suddenly no longer about capturing Samson, not for her. It’s about getting him out of here. It’s about destroying the red lyrium in a fit of destruction that will leave him breathless, his chest tight from the violent display of magic. It’s about making him safe. Making sure he survives.

Cullen meets her gaze across the crimson shards and sets his mouth in a flat line. _Samson_ , he reminds her silently. _We came here for Samson_.

If they can neutralize one of the greatest threats standing against Catheryn then he will count this relapse of symptoms well worth it.

Catheryn returns his look with a stern one of her own, the message clear: _It’s not worth it_. He grunts in disagreement and walks deeper into the temple proper.

 “This place is already half destroyed!” she calls after him.

Cullen grimaces as he looks around. _Andraste's flaming tits_ , he thinks desperately, the gruff curse echoing around his own skull. _Half destroyed_  is an optimistic underestimation. It’s a bloody miracle the building is left standing at all. With a wordless snarl Cullen slams his shield against the crumbling walls. “Samson must have ordered his Templars to sack his headquarters so we couldn’t,” he finally manages to remark, the thread of his anger barely kept in check. He doesn’t need to go further to know – Samson is not here. Not anymore.

“Someone must have tipped Samson off,” Catheryn observes flatly as she comes to stand beside him. Ahead of them stretches the long interior of the temple, the ancient wood and stone crackling in half dead fires. “He knew we were coming.”

 Cullen grinds his teeth until his jaw aches as badly as the rest of him and points to the shapes he can see emerging out of smoke and flame with his sword. “To work?” he manages to growl with a tip of his head.

“To work,” Catheryn agrees, releasing him like an arrow into the madness that waits for them.

 For a time, at least, Cullen’s fury and disappointment are enough to crowd out any other songs that might try to sing inside his head.

* * *

 

At first he thinks it is just another corpse. Some other poor bastard left dead and discarded like garbage when Samson had taken his leave. The shrine is thick with such refuse – two bodies already on the ground for every lyrium infected monster that Cullen puts there, their bones a thick carpet that crunch and crack beneath his feet. Then it – _he_ – moves, lifting his head as their party searches the room at the very back of the temple. The red lyrium is thickest here, a veritable forest of it bursting out of the ground to light the room with its glow.

“Hello, Inquisitor,” he says softly, carefully, as if it takes great effort to convince his tongue to form the right syllables. His eyes rest unerringly on Catheryn as she tilts her head.

“You know me.” It’s not a question but the man before them nods wearily and there is something familiar about that movement that pulls at shadows of Cullen’s memory.

“Maddox,” he breathes in surprise. Maker, he looks so different than he had in Kirkwall. His face is rounder and his hair significantly shorter, nearly shorn off his head instead of falling into thick waves nearly to his shoulders. The once lively eyes are blank and dull, the perfect neutrality of tranquility staring out of his tired face.

“The tranquil that Samson took in?” Catheryn asks softly. Cullen nods, and then realizing that she hasn’t taken her eyes off of the man sitting up against the base of the bed confirms out loud,

“Yes. But something is wrong,” he adds with another look at the former mage. Even for a tranquil he is too calm. His skin is too pale, his breathing too shallow as he stares at Catheryn like he’s trying to memorize her features. “He needs a healer. Solas…”

“That would be a waste, Knight-Captain Cullen” Maddox whispers, that blank gaze finally flickering from Catheryn’s face to his in acknowledgement. “I drank my entire supply of Blightcap Essence. It won’t be long now.”

Cullen stares, all feeling dropping out of the bottom of his stomach until there is nothing but bone deep weariness left, an emptiness that not even the song can fill. “Maker’s breath…”

“We wouldn't have hurt you,” Catheryn murmurs gently, crouching so that the dying man doesn’t have to twist his neck to stare up at her. “We would have only wanted to ask you some questions, Maddox.”

“Yes,” the tranquil agrees slowly, “That is what I could not allow. I destroyed the camp with fire. We all agreed it was best.  Our deaths ensured that Samson had time to escape.”

“You threw your lives away? For _Samson_?” Cullen can’t keep the harsh incredulity from his voice. He might, _might,_ expect that sort of loyalty from his men and he knew that Catheryn commanded such loyalty from her Inner Circle at the very least but the idea that so many held Samson in such devotion… Maker. “Why?” he asks and he can’t help the way his voice breaks on his plea as he tries, tries so bloody hard to understand.

“Samson saved me even before he needed me,” comes Maddox’s unhesitating reply. “He gave me purpose again.” The ‘ _when you took away everything that I was and made me into this’_ went unsaid but it rang louder than a set of alarm bells in Cullen’s ears.  “I… wanted to help,” he confesses, the words barely more than a movement of air in front of his lips, as his head falters, slumping forward over his chest.

After a moment Cullen kneels at his side, his fingers going to the pulse point on the other man’s throat. Even before he touches it he can see its stillness and he _knows_. Still, he checks for any signs of life while Catheryn holds his hand and when he doesn’t find any he lets his hand fall gently to the corpse’s shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, bowing his head.

It’s appropriate, he thinks, that his entire body shakes with the force of his lyrium withdrawals.

“We should check the camp,” he finally says as he pushes himself unsteadily to his feet. “Maddox may have missed something.”  _Maker, please let it be so_ , he adds in silent prayer. He’s not sure he will be able to take it if this turns up nothing but death and despair. Catheryn stares at him for a long moment, her face unreadable, before she finally nods and turns away.

He’s desperately grateful that she doesn’t touch him even though he aches for the brush of her fingers and the circle of her arms nearly as much as he does the lyrium. He couldn’t take it, couldn’t handle the understanding and  love that he would feel there. Not when there is nothing but self-loathing in his heart.

_We all have sins_ , he reminds himself. Still, it is one thing to know it and another entirely to be faced with the results of your transgressions.

“You push yourself too hard, _vheraan_ ,” Solas’ voice is soft, but firm in his ear as they both watch Cole crouch before Maddox’s body, the assassin’s hand laid in gentle benediction over the dead man’s heart.

 “Really?” Cullen chokes on a manic peal of laughter that claws at his chest. He shakes his head instead. “I’m beginning to think that I have not pushed myself enough.”

Solas’ grey eyes narrow thoughtfully but whatever he might have wanted to say is stalled by Catheryn’s swearing. “Lyrium bottles,” she all but shouts, throwing up her hand to keep Cullen from coming to close.

He stops because she wishes it but it doesn’t matter. He can smell it from here. He’s been able to smell it the whole bloody time they’ve been in the room. It’s how he knew that it must have been Samson’s. “Licked clean,” he observes tersely, staring at the dozens of little bottles that litter the floor beside the bed. “How much lyrium is Samson taking?” Cullen asks in growing horror as he spies an entire crate filled with empty bottles shoved over against the wall. “His resistance must be extraordinary.”

And so must his dependence.

 “Desperate. Digging. It doesn’t sing as loudly so he needs more,” Cole observes at his side. Cullen shudders.

Maker, he can’t even imagine. Not even with the hunger of his own want gnawing desperately in his gut.

A piece of paper, stark and white against the dark wood of a bottle strewn desk calls to him and he reaches out, plucking it from amidst the stench and call of lyrium with his fingers. “Samson left a message,” he announces calmly as he glances over it - more calmly than he feels, certainly. “It’s for me.”

“What’s it say?” Catheryn asks.

Cullen spares a glance at her face, her lips twisted with a strange mix of worry and distaste as she stares at the paper in his hands. “ _Drink enough lyrium and its song reveals the truth_ ,” Cullen reads out loud, thankful that his voice doesn’t shake like the note in his grip. “ _The Chantry used us. You’re fighting the wrong battle. Corypheus chose me as his general and his vessel of power_ … and other such nonsense,” he spits, shaking his head at the words that fill the rest of the page. They’re not worth reading. “As if I would sympathize.” Unconsciously he balls his hands into fists because doesn’t he? At least a little?

Despite it all, the note finds its way into the one of the pockets sewn into the lining of his coat.

“Let’s search the outer rooms, there’s nothing else here,” Catheryn urges. He doesn’t look at her but he can feel her eyes on him anyway.

In one of the outer rooms they find a cluster of heavy tables piled high with papers and implements that Cullen doesn’t recognize. “This must have been where Maddox worked,” Catheryn surmises as she halts the progress of the flames with a blanket of ice.

“Dagna will be thrilled with these,” Thom mutters, holding up a sheaf of schematics.

“The fire couldn’t destroy these entirely… whatever they are,” Cullen adds as he stares at them.

Solas reaches down, his long fingers trailing along the edge of one of the instruments. “They are implements for working with lyrium safely,” he explains as he picks one of the smaller pieces up and rolls it between hi hands. “The craftsmanship is remarkable.”

“Tranquil often design their own tools.  Maddox must have helped create Samson’s armor,” Cullen realizes slowly. The sudden brightness in his chest is nearly enough to knock him over, the relief rendering him mind numbingly dizzy. Something. Blessed Andraste, they’d found something useful amidst all the wreck and ruin.

“We’ll bring them back with us. Hopefully Dagna can learn more than is immediately apparent from them.” Carefully Catheryn takes the tool that he doesn’t remember picking up from his shaking hands. “We’re done here,” she tells him and there’s no room for argument in her tone.

“Yes,” he agrees softly. “We are. Hopefully it’s not a total loss.”

Catheryn presses her lips into a tight line and doesn’t say what she’s thinking, but she doesn’t have to. He hears it anyway.

_Fuck that shit._

Cullen squares his shoulders and goes to work, doing his best to ignore the song screeching along his skin. He does a pretty good job of it too and makes it all the way back to their carefully concealed camp before he collapses face first into the snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _vheraan_ = lion


	3. You Can't Ever Leave

It is a mistake to bring Cullen.

Don’t get her wrong, she relishes the idea of actually getting to fight with him on the field and not just against him in the sparring ring – and every night that doesn’t require that they sleep in separate beds is a great one. So there’s that. But that’s not enough. Not when being out here in the stretch of nothing in Northern Orlais is killing him.

 It’s not the wolves or the occasional bandits that she worries about. Those are dispatched with methodical ease. Nor is she concerned about the possibility that they might come across a rift (they don’t). No, it is the lyrium. That Samson is an addict is a known. Andraste’s flaming ass, his armor is made of the fucking stuff. He’s also Corypheus’ head goon. It’s not a matter of _if_ there’s going to be red lyrium growing thicker than weeds around his corrupt ass it’s simply a matter of _how fucking much_.

She knows they’re getting close when Cullen starts to lose the glow of life beneath his skin. At first she thinks he’s merely tired but as soon as that thought crosses her mind she begins to recognize the symptoms: chills and fever, ashen skin, overly bright eyes, muscle tremors, intermittent loss of fine and gross motor control, and a suppression of appetite. The second time he leaves camp in less than an hour, supposedly to piss, Catheryn stares after him and mutters without thought, “I shouldn’t have let him come.”

“This is important to him, _falon_ ,” Solas replies calmly as he joins her, his fingertips soft on her elbow, urging her back towards camp. She hadn’t even realized that she’d started to follow him. “It is something he must do.”

“But he…” she barely catches herself from spilling the knowledge of Cullen’s addiction to – and refusal to take – lyrium. Mouth pressed in a thin line Catheryn shakes her head and let’s Solas lead her back to the pale, flickering flames of veil fire that burn smokeless at the center of their little camp. She sits next to Solas but her eyes drift back to the forest.

“… he will be alright,” Solas assures, pressing a warmed mug into her hands. “He has not come this far to fall to it now. The Commander is made of stronger stuff than that.” He pauses, clearly deliberating over his words for some time before he finally adds, “If there was anything I could do to make it easier for him, I would.”

Catheryn tips her head and stares at him over the mug of tea she holds to her lips. Most people look at Solas and see the elf, the apostate. A few of the smarter ones see the man who kept the Herald alive when the Breach first filled the sky and the talent who paints breathtaking murals across the walls of Skyhold. Fewer still glimpse the scholar and the warrior, an enigma that is equally at home amongst piles of dusty books in obscure dialects on even more obscure magics as he is wading knee deep through blood and gore. She is not fool enough to think that, in spite of their closeness, she knows more than the very surface facts that make up Solas.

Still, she knows him better than most and she knows that he is nearly as observant as Bull.

“Solas…”

“I can smell it,” he explains, sparing her the need to actually speak the words out loud and allowing her to keep Cullen’s secret – at least officially. “Or the lack of _it_ , to be more precise.”

“Oh.” Now that she thinks about it there is _something_ different between Cullen and the rest of the Templars stationed at Skyhold. She’s never paid much attention to it, putting it down to senses honed by a lifetime in a Circle. Technically, that’s still probably true. She just has never associated it with the _smell_ of lyrium. She spends as little time as possible around the stuff – well, around the uncorrupted sources. In fact, with the exception of the very limited times when she herself has been forced to down a vial of the shifting blue liquid the only time she is around lyrium is when it is already moving through the veins of another – a state that she would have thought put it out of reach of her sense of smell.

“He bears it well. I have seen many men and women driven mad by it.”

 “…In the Fade?” she asks, partly surprised and partly hopeful.

The look he gives her is sad. “There too,” he acknowledges with a nod of his head.

“Ah, is it Fade story-time?” Thom asks as he rejoins the camp, a brace of rabbits held in his hand.

“A wise man is always seeking to expand his knowledge,” Solas chides, accepting the half empty mug as Catheryn stands back up.

Thom grunts. “I think we have established that I am not a wise man. I’ll leave that to better men than me.” She doesn’t miss the look that Solas shoots him as she crouches to pull the hunting knives from their respective saddle bags.

“Wiser than you think,” the apostate finally murmurs and is rewarded by a small, hesitant smile from beneath the slightly wild array of Thom’s beard.

When Cullen stumbles back into camp, Catheryn looks up from where she’s buried in rabbit blood and innards as bites her tongue so that she doesn’t comment at the wan, bloodless expression on his face or the fact that Cole is practically holding him up.

 _He bears it well_ , Solas’ words replay.

If this is well, then never let her see unwell.

Over the coming days she keeps Solas’ words in mind and handles it well, she thinks, until that terrible moment there at the temple entrance where all she can see is that he goes down, leaving the bend of his neck and the curve of his spine devastatingly vulnerable to the Behemoth’s swings.

“ _Cullen_!” she screams, her heart leaping clear out of her throat because all she can think is _Not him. Not him. Not him. If there ever was a Maker or Gods or Creatosr, please, not him!_ And just like that Thom is between them, a veritable wall of steel and shield, solid and unyielding beneath the force of the Behemoth’s blows. Cullen stays down for a heartbeat, and then another, and then he surges to his feet, exploding from behind Thom’s protection in a whirlwind of sword and shield that shatter one of the monster’s legs out from underneath it.

 It’s harder after that, though. She can tell as soon as the lyrium glow fades that it his shaken him – that something happened that has reached past the iron will holding him together and shattered it as surely as the lyrium that crunches beneath her feet.

So she’s not surprised, not really, when he collapses in a dead faint not two feet from the tent.

She’s just grateful it didn’t happen beneath someone’s sword.

 

* * *

 

The look on Catheryn’s face when Cullen drops is one of the worst things he’s ever seen. Not _the_ worst – the sight of Catheryn sobbing over the tiny body of their stillborn daughter and the memory of Callier’s children laid out in a row jockey for that dubious honor. Which one comes out on top depends entirely on the day, the nightmares, and the level of active self-loathing. This, though, is a solid third place entry. It ties, quite depressingly, with the look on her face when he stepped onto the gallows and stopped Mornay’s execution.

Solas is at the Commander’s side before Thom can do much more than register the other man’s lapse into unconsciousness. “Pulse?” he asks steadily as he helps Catheryn turn the fallen man on his side.

“Erratic,” she mutters after a moment’s silence, “and too fast but at least it’s there.” The tight press of her lips makes the bottom fall out of Thom’s stomach. He hadn’t realized that it not being there had been an option. Fuck all, objectively he knows that it _could_ happen. Cullen’s a soldier, a fighter, and a fucking good one. It is not inconceivable that he fall in battle, no matter how skilled he is, and Thom’s seen enough battles to know that all wounds don’t make themselves manifest immediately.

Whether they like it or not, death is what they trade in and eventually all soldiers run out of ways to buy more time. It’s just a fact of life. The sky is blue. War is unfair. Soldiers die.

Cold. Hard. Facts.

But the idea of the Commander disappearing on a pyre, that steady surety and scarred smile turning into nothing more than ash to be borne away on the wind is nearly enough to crush Thom’s chest.  “He was well earlier,” he offers, fingers scrambling for the red vial of elfroot potion that he has tucked into a case at his belt. “Or well enough,” he corrects after a moment of thought because the Commander had seemed a little _off_ after their skirmish at the shrine. He’d put most of that down to the death of the Tranquil, Maddox. It didn’t take a genius to put together that he and Cullen had known each other at a different time, in a different life, as different men.

 _I am, directly or indirectly, responsible for making more mages Tranquil than anyone else in Thedas_ , Cullen’s confession whispers once again in his head, making him shiver. He’s never really believed it, even though he heard it from the Commander himself. It’s too hard to reconcile the man he knows with monster the Orlesian gossips painted, with the cold, inhuman bastard that Cullen speaks of with such a look of pain on his face.

He believed it today. Standing back and watching Cullen stare down at Maddox, who only had eyes for the Inquisitor, now he believes. Tranquility had stripped Maddox of all the feelings he would have had for the Commander, leaving Cullen to shoulder the weight of his actions entirely alone without even the hope of confrontation to alleviate his burden – the press of lives taken as surely as if he had run them through with his blade, except that they are still all up and walking about with no life shining in their eyes.

To watch Maddox die – again – especially in service of a man who embodied every possible _wrong_ choice to Cullen had to be excruciating.

_We all have our sins._

The other unsteadiness, the paler cast to his face, and the tension lines around his eyes are easy enough to credit to the red lyrium. One of the perks – perhaps one of the only, in Thom’s opinion – of rarely having to leave Skyhold is that Cullen hasn’t had to spend much time rubbing up against the corrupted stuff – metaphorically and literally. To Thom’s knowledge the last time the Commander had come face to face with it had been when the Templars had taken Haven. It’s one thing to be surrounded by it in the form of the bodies it has taken over. It’s another nightmare entirely to walk among it, to feel it crunch beneath your feet and brush along your skin.

The deposits at the Temple of Sacred Ashes would be considered small, now. Barely worth mentioning in a report. Something to just be destroyed as they move past.

And Cullen is a Templar, or _was_.  He’s sure to feel the corruption more than most or at least more than Thom does.

“The song is angry that he won’t listen,” Cole observes, his face turned back towards the shrine when Thom squints questionably at him.  “It rattles his chains and doesn’t understand that he’s already broken them.”

Thom bites back a curse. Now is not the time to get after Cole for saying shit that no one understands. _Or maybe just shit that I don’t understand_ , he corrects as he watches Solas and Catheryn exchange a look. Clearly, the boy’s words mean something to them, something that Thom is missing. He has the sinking feeling that for once his incomprehension has little to do Cole’s cryptic way of speaking and more with missing information. He’s lacking a piece of this puzzle, a piece that everyone else possesses, and knowledge of that lack makes something sharp twist in his chest.

“What is wrong with him?” he asks quietly.

Catheryn’s face twists into snarl as she brushes sweat-slicked curls away from Cullen’s forehead. “The lyrium,” she spits. “It…” she chokes on the words, shaking her head.

“It what?” he asks gently, trying to understand. “Is it harder for him to be around it, because he’s a Templar? Does it mess with the stuff he takes?” Thom will be the first to admit that he knows shit about lyrium. He’s not a Templar or a mage, so he’s never had the need to take it. It’s one of those things that he passes around the periphery of his existence. It’s there but it’s not _involved_.

Catheryn blinks up at him, her eyes impossibly wide for a moment and then, “Fucking son of a bitch!” she swears at the same time as Solas sighs,

 “ _Delavir vheraan!_ ” in a tone of voice that conveys a slightly more disappointed connotation than Catheryn’s bright flash of anger.

“Stupid, _stupid_ bastard,” she adds. A breath. Another. A twitch of her fingers that Thom recognizes as a subconscious reminder to herself to _not_ set anyone on fire. “Not _you_ ,” she clarifies, still staring at Thom. “ _Him_.” She stabs Cullen in the chest with her finger. She doesn’t look at him.

And if that doesn’t stoke the fires of curiosity into a fucking inferno than nothing will. Still, Thom’s not completely senseless. He keeps his mouth shut and just waits.

“It’s not my secret to tell,” she finally states with a harsh exhale through her nostrils and Thom nods.

 “I understand.”

 “…but you should ask him about it when he wakes up.” Her gaze is steady on his own and he tips his head in acknowledgement. He’ll ask, because she asks it of him, but that doesn’t mean that Cullen will share whatever it is that Catheryn thinks he should know.

Still, that doesn’t stop Thom from hoping that he will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to the influx of out of town holiday guests and a wedding I need to attend I'm going to save myself and say that I will not be posting a chapter next week - sorry!
> 
> Elvish Translation:  
>  _falon_ = a true friend; one who is a guiding influence on your life  
>  _delavir vheraan_ = stupid lion
> 
> The idea of Solas being able to smell whether or not someone is using lyrium is inspired by a comment Dorian makes if you romance him as a warrior who chooses the Templar specialization.


	4. Every Song Has Its Price

He can feel the entire length of his throat when he tries to swallow – rough and dry and prickly, like someone has made him swallow broken glass and then stuffed his esophagus with dusty cotton rags. The feeling continues all the way down so that every thin, sharp breath makes his lungs feel like they’re on fire. In turn the lack of proper breath makes his head pound but he knows from experience that if he sucks in the air too quickly the pain will be worse, searing the sensation in his throat until it feels raw for days. So he just lays there and concentrates on taking short, slow breaths while he catalogues the sensations moving through his body.

He aches. There’s the soft, not completely unpleasant, weariness of a fight well fought – of muscles trying to relax after an afternoon spent swinging sword and shield from inside the full weight of his armor. Beneath that is something sharper, harder, that drags at his muscles until everything feels like he’s encased in wet sand. It’s a stabbing, piercing pain that digs like claws into his bones, twisting and ripping until he can all but hear the faint _snap_ of his body breaking beneath the exerted force. 

 Maker’s breath, it’s been a long time since he felt this way. Not since Haven and after Halamshiral.

_No_ , his subconscious corrects and instinctively he shies away from the memory it drags to the surface. He does not want to think about the fevered days spent in the hold of a ship on the crossing from Kirkwall. He doesn’t want to remember the aches and pains that tore him apart and left him retching until there was nothing but blood and bile in the bucket. He doesn’t want to remember lying on his narrow bunk, soaked in a cold sweat, and praying that the first awful brunt of the lyrium withdrawals would flat out kill him. Oblivion had never sounded so good. He doesn’t want to think of how badly he just wanted everything to end.

The pounding in his head is a much safer topic of thought – it, at least, is a more familiar and every-day sort of pain. He knows that crushing sensation at the base of his skull with eventually fade to a dull ache and that the repetitive pounding in his temples – as if all the dwarves in Orzammar are attempting to mine the shadow of lyrium from his soul – will eventually die down to a throbbing that beats in time with his heart. Even the nausea and the chills will fade into the background and become something that only bears noticing if he’s about to eat or for some reason forgets his coat.

The red lyrium’s melody, however, is still there. Singing for all it’s worth, with the damnable enthusiasm of a devout chantry choir and a discordance that makes Sera look musically gifted.

He never thought that there would be something that would make him miss the siren song of the little blue bottle but, Andraste preserve him, he will take a storeroom full of it over the current cacophony raging in his head.

Cullen opens his eyes, desperate for something – anything – to escape the thoughts beginning to swirl around his head and finds himself staring at the inside of a standard Inquisition tent. It’s dim, dim enough that the light hitting his eyes doesn’t automatically make his stomach heave or his head try to explode like a barrel of gaatlok. It’s warm too, now that he thinks about it. Too warm to simply be the result of his coat and blanket covering him. It’s not enough heat to warm him through – or to make the chills stop, rather – but it’s enough that he doesn’t feel like his teeth are about to rattle out of his head. Catheryn’s doing, no doubt. Her presence fills his senses, a palpable weight to the air and a prickle along his skin. The scent of dawn lotus and lavender is more tangible – and verifiable as something other than the prickling of Templar senses that refuse to die – as is the weight and warmth of at least part of her body pressed against his legs. There’s someone else there too. A solid warmth just off the side of shoulder.

Slowly, Cullen turns his head to the side and carefully counts out ten shallow breaths before he blinks enough to bring Thom’s face into focus.

“So you’re awake then?” he asks gruffly, his voice barely loud enough to fill the space between them.

“Seems that way,” he grunts, wincing at the sound of his voice. There’s relief on Thom’s face as he holds up the water skin in silent question.

Three swallows is all that Cullen can take but it’s enough to clear the worst of the dusty-rag feeling out of his throat. Whether the water will stay down remains to be seen but for now it sits uneasily in his stomach, neither soothing or provoking.

Unexpected, certainly, but he’s not going to look that gift horse in the mouth.  

"Thanks,” he murmurs as Thom guides him back down to rolled blanket he’d been using for a pillow. It isn’t until he’s lying back down and the spinning in his head slows that he finally finds Catheryn. She is, as he suspected, curled up next to him, her legs pressed against his beneath the covers. It must be her blanket beneath his head though because she is otherwise bare, left only in the clothes she wears beneath her armor, her head cushioned in Thom’s lap. She’s turned toward him, her face slack with sleep, but the hand beneath her cheek is curled around the curve of the Champion’s thigh, her fingers clenched tightly around the excess fabric. Her other hand is stretched out towards him, the fingertips resting gently against his rib, unable to let go of either of them even in her sleep.

Especially in her sleep, perhaps, when she had fewer senses to keep track of them.

Following the line of Cullen’s gaze the other man smiles, his hand falling gently to rest on her head. “It took her a bit to fall asleep but I promised that I’d stay up. In case you needed anything. You frightened her, you know. You frightened us both,” he confesses quietly as he weaves his fingers through the short, wispy, curls that have freed themselves from Catheryn’s braid. The weight of the words is enough to make his stomach, and everything north of it, drop.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes, looking away. “I didn’t think it would get that bad.” And that’s the Maker’s own truth. If he had known it would be like this it might have been enough to make him stay in Skyhold. Better there than out here where his weakness paints a target across the backs of everyone around him. _I’m barely suitable for a desk job_ , he chides himself. _What made me think that I’d be okay out in the field_? It’s not like it went well the last couple of times. Both Halamshiral and Adamant had nearly driven him to madness and it doesn’t look like this experience is shaping up much better.

Cullen sighs.

Hesitantly, Thom asks, “What happened?”

Cullen sighs again, this time louder. The time, it appears, has finally arrived for the conversation he has been dreading for months. He knew, that first night as they walked the battlements, both probably a little too tipsy – and yet not nearly drunk enough – for the conversation they were having, that he would have to tell Thom everything. If they were truly to enter into a relationship with Catheryn, _together_ , then Thom would need to know – about Kinloch, Kirkwall, and the lyrium. The other man would need to know the demons that, quite literally, haunted Cullen’s sleep. He’d need to know, and be prepared for the possibility that someday the Commander might go down and not get up again.

He’d gotten Kirkwall out of the way in a spike of frustration, ripping that wound open and letting it ooze out all over the table between them.

The other two have proved harder to tackle.

“Catheryn didn’t tell you?” he mutters, trying to not sound hopeful. _Please, Maker, let her have told him. At least about the lyrium._

 “No.”    

 Cullen swears. Softly.

 “She said that I had to ask you,” Thom clarifies when he’s done. He sounds apologetic – regretful, even, for bringing it up. “That it was your secret to tell.”

 “Of course she did.” Cullen hasn’t sighed this much since he was eleven years old and Mia was lording over him with her superior chess abilities. “What do you know about lyrium?”

Thom grunts and shrugs. “Not much,” he admits. “The Chantry has always been a little tight lipped about it – and Rainier wasn’t devout.”

“Ah,” Cullen acknowledges when it is clear that Thom isn’t going to say anything else. It’d probably been too much to hope for – that the other man might have at least a passing familiarity with how lyrium usage worked. “It… it is what gives a Templar their power,” he finally begins. “Without it we’re nothing more than common soldiers. Perhaps less, in some cases. They give you your first draught after you’ve taken your vows – your first vial of lyrium,” Cullen swallows, hard, and shoves back the longing that tries to fill his voice. Even now, even knowing all that it has done to him and all that it will do to him he still _wants_ it. Wants that perfect moment so badly that his hands will never stop shaking.

“You feel like the Maker himself, for a while, and when it fades you find that you’ll do anything – _everything_ – to feel that again. And the Order knows it. Without lyrium a Templar is more than useless, nothing more than begging rabble on the streets.”

His fingers tighten into fists at his side, the blunt edges of his nails cutting into his flesh. Andraste preserve him, but how close had he come to being one of them? One of the nameless, mindless beasts that roved, desperate and hunting for every drop of that blue song that they could get their hands on. If Cassandra had not offered him his position with the Inquisition would he have ever had the strength to leave the Order? To stop taking lyrium? Or would he have waited, beaten and obedient, eternally the good Templar even when the vial was red instead of blue?

 Where would he have died? Where would Catheryn have been forced to kill him? To put him down like a rapid dog? Would he have marched on Haven and died there, in the snow? Or would he fallen amongst the sand of the Western Approach or the Hissing Wastes, searching madly for something his master desired? Would he have stood guard over innocent men and women as their bodies were turned into fields for the corrupted lyrium to take root in? Might he have died with Maddox inside that shrine, sacrificing his life to buy Samson time to escape? Or, perhaps worst yet, would he still be living, breathing inside the red song’s possession?

In spite of the tightness in his chest Cullen inhales sharply. This isn’t the first time he’s had these thoughts but something about where he is now – or perhaps who he’s with – they claw at his mind, shredding it with terror.

Thom’s grip on his hand is hard and sure, a comforting anchor in the waking nightmare. “I’ve seen them – poor miserable bastards.” His pale eyes narrow in thought as he stares at Cullen, who sucks in another painful breath as he watches the former chevalier put the pieces together. Thom’s far from stupid, never mind the _just a simple soldier_ persona he wears. “I thought they were addicts, though. Are you…?”

Cullen can’t stop the bitter bark of laughter that tears itself from his throat. “All Templars are addicts. From that first vial they own us – lock, stock, and key. We can’t live without it”

“Do you need more lyrium?” Thom asks, his brow furrowing as he tries to ferret out the last bits of the puzzle. “Catheryn usually keeps a small vial for emergencies…” Cullen jerks his head violently.

“ _No_! Maker’s breath, _no_.” Bloody… he’d almost managed to forget about that, forget that there is a vial of it so close to him. Quite possibly within reach. _Breathe, Rutherford_ , he reminds himself. “No lyrium,” he manages and his voice doesn’t shake. It _doesn’t_. “You don’t…” He stops and takes a deep breath – and then another – and then another – before he looks up. Thom’s face is a study in shadows above the bristle of his beard broken only by the almost pearlescent green of his eyes. “You don’t understand,” he makes himself say. No one ever does. Well, Catheryn did, but she’s the exception to every rule – or close enough. Plus, she’d been a Circle Mage. She knew what went on in those towers.

 “Templars control the mages, but lyrium controls the Templars, and the Order – the _Chantry_ – controls the lyrium. It’s a noose and a leash. I couldn’t risk…” When his voice starts shaking he makes himself stop and take another deep breath, grounding himself against the panic lapping at the inside of his skull. “When I accepted this position I left the Templars. I wanted nothing to do with them – wanted there to be no chance that they could use my authority to further their cause. A cause my conscience no longer allowed me to believe in. I wanted nothing to do with that life, with who I was.”

The memory of Maddox’s face fills his eyes – as empty in death as it was in life and so very, heartbreakingly different from the boisterous young man he had known. How many mages had his fear and hatred sent to such a fate? How many Templars had he inadvertently sentenced to madness and inevitable death? In the face of Corypheus’ destruction the numbers were perhaps small but he felt each one of them, a heavy stone lying upon his conscious.

“I can understand that,” Thom offers quietly, breaking through the guilt, and Cullen has to bite back the slightly hysterical giggle that rises in his throat.

_Yes_ , he thinks, _I suppose you do._ In fact, now that he thinks about it, Thom is probably the only person in his acquaintance that understands this particularity.

“I stopped taking lyrium.”

The sound of the tent leather snapping in the wind tries to break the heavy silence.

It fails.

“Maker’s balls you… you did _what_?” 

The shadows are deep enough that Cullen can’t get a good look at his face but his voice… Maker, his voice sounds like his face looked the day Cullen broke his jaw.

“I stopped taking lyrium,” Cullen repeats and it’s easier to say the second time. “I haven’t taken any since I left Kirkwall.”

“But you… you just said…”

“It’s not been without its difficulties,” Cullen points out with a snort that encompasses their current situation. “But I’ve managed.” Barely. And only because Catheryn and Cassandra are the two most stubborn women in all of Thedas.

“ _Maker_ ,” it’s the prayer of someone who has lived in the dark for their whole life only to have somebody stumble through and light a torch on the wall. “Your headaches. The way your hands shake… I always thought it was stress. Maker knows it would be if I were in your shoes. _Maker_. How are you…”

“…still Commander?” Cullen grunts. “Because Cassandra and Catheryn won’t replace me.”

“Of course not,” Thom snaps above him. “You excel at your job. The Inquisition is all the stronger for you having it.”

Even the poor lighting isn’t enough to hide the blush that Cullen can feel staining his cheeks. “People keep saying that,” he mutters, “but if I can’t hold it together – if I can’t even handle a walk around Skyhold some days, let alone _this_ …!” The hand in Thom’s grip twitches, a half-hearted gesture to indicate their current mission. “Surely there is someone better out there for the job.”

“Fuck if there is. You’re our Commander and you’ve gotten us this far. No reason to lose faith in you now.” Thom clears his throat, shifting slightly. “It’s a fucking miracle you’re still alive.” And Cullen can’t argue that because it’s fact. It is a miracle that he’s alive and still in possession of his mind – a puzzle that he can’t hardly comprehend every morning that he opens his eyes and realizes that he’s not dead or locked in a cell somewhere.

Thom’s words, however, bring him back around to the whole purpose for this conversation. “Which is why you have to know. If we’re doing… _this_ … whatever it is… you need to know that there’s a good chance that someday it will prove too much,” he warns quietly, “and either my mind will crack or I’ll just fail to wake up.”

Thom swears. Viciously. “She won’t… she won’t live through that,” he whispers finally, his grip tightening to the point of pain.

“She will,” Cullen retorts firmly. “She’ll have you.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be enough.”

“You will be,” Cullen assures and he does not doubt that if – _when_ – the day comes that it will indeed prove true. Thom might still have problems believing him worthy of her affections but Cullen sees the way she looks at him. It’s why they’re having this conversation to begin with.

“And neither of you are dying,” Catheryn growls from where her head is still buried against Thom’s leg. “Ever. Not if I have any fucking say in the matter.”

Neither man is stupid enough to argue the matter with her. Not when she’s using that tone of voice. Not when her hands are shaking as she grips at them.

“How are you doing?” she asks softly, releasing his shirt so that she can trace the contours of his face. Cullen groans softly and sinks into her touch. It is cool and hot all at the same time, the pads of her fingers chilling the overheated flesh of his face at the same time as they send warmth down past his skin to where the chills have locked up all the little muscles that he didn’t know existed until they started aching with tension. It’s more than that, though. It’s always been more than that.

 From the very first time she’d touched him – and he doesn’t count him carrying her out of the ruins of the Temple of Sacred Ashes and back to Haven the day she had sealed the rift that had caused the Breach – her touch has been a balm to every ragged, gaping wound in his life. Back when he was drowning in the withdrawal, his responsibilities, and his own terror that he would fail – yet again – and hadn’t done much more than think Catheryn was rather pretty and be thankful that she hadn’t incinerated him on the spot once Cassandra had introduced them she had still possessed the power to drive back his demons and buy him a moment – mere seconds at times – when his mind was his own.

He would be dead without her, of that he has no doubt.

“I’m fine,” he presses a soft kiss to the palm of her hand and manages a small smile with half his mouth. “Or I will be, as soon we get away from the worst of the red lyrium.”

Gently, she leans over him and presses gentle kiss to his lips. “You stupid bastard,” she breathes, but there is no venom in her voice, only relief. “I should have left you in Skyhold. If you’d… If I’d…” her breath slips out in a shaking sigh as she presses herself to him. Her cheek is damp where it slides alongside his as she whispers, “You scared me.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers back. It hurts to wrap his arms around her and pull until she’s practically lying on him, nestled across his chest with her face buried in the curve of his neck but that doesn’t stop him. If there is one thing in this life that Cullen knows he is capable of enduring, it is pain. Maker, the look on her face – like she thought herself personally responsible for the fact that he couldn’t sit up on his own right now to save his life – that hurt more than anything that might twinge or bruise as he held her. “How long have you been awake?”

Catheryn grunts dismissively. “Not long,” and Cullen can’t stop the small wince. She’s been awake the whole time, then. Or near enough.

Figures.

“I needed to do this. Even though… even though we didn’t neutralize Samson.”

The pang in his gut and the sour taste in his mouth as he’s forced to speak that fact out loud is far worse than anything the lyrium’s screeching is doing to him.

“I know. I know I can’t keep you locked up in Skyhold. I know I can’t swaddle you up in some… cocoon… I _know._ I just… I just want you safe.” Thom’s hand spasms at her words and presses their interwoven fingers more tightly into the small of her back. “ _Both of you_ ,” she stresses quietly, as she’s afraid to say such a thing out loud.

“We’re in the wrong profession for that, my lady.” Somehow the deep rumble of Thom’s voice only makes the truth sound more bleak, or maybe that is just the lyrium creeping into his thoughts. Sometimes it colors the whole world gray and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it.

Catheryn sighs against Cullen’s neck. “Doesn’t mean I’m not going to try. I’ve got to go,” she adds after a moment. “It’s my turn for watch.”

Reluctantly Cullen lets her go, but not before drawing her lips down to his and kissing her tenderly, every nudge of his lips against hers a silent _I am here_. _It will be alright. I am here._ She shudders and presses back harder. “Try to get some more rest,”  she says as she draws away.

“I could go, if you want to stay here and…” Thom says, but Catheryn is shaking her head before he even finishes.

“No. You need rest too. I know you. You said you’d keep an eye on Cullen so that’s exactly what you’ve done.” She rests a hand on his chest and he swallows loud enough that Cullen can hear it over the sudden pounding of his own heart. She pauses for a moment, waiting, he thinks for either one of them to voice some sort of protest. When they don’t – when there is nothing but the sounds of their breathing – she tilts her head up and kisses Thom too.

Cullen’s breath stops in his chest.

He expects it to hurt, just a little, but it doesn’t and that’s so surprising that he almost sucks in a lungful of air – except he _can’t_. He can’t because he sees _it_. It’s written all over the way Thom curls around her, bracketing her with his body in a way that said _mine_ and _shield_. It’s in the way her eyes flutter shut and the way her body melts into his. It’s in the way they press their foreheads together when they part.

When he looks at them he can see what he feels. It’s like someone has ripped the burning tangle of emotions out of his chest and painted them across the two bodies next to him.

It’s stunning and shocking and _beautiful_.

It’s everything he didn’t know he needed – a healing salve spread across the flayed and broken remnants of his body and soul here on one of the darkest of nights.

 

* * *

 

Catheryn stumbles across the campsite – past the other tent, past where Solas is sitting next to the veilfire, past the edge of their little hollow, and into the woods. When she trips on a snow covered branch she doesn’t bother to stop herself, she merely grunts as she lands on her hands and knees, the fire in her fingertips melting through the snow to the frozen earth below in but an instant. The earth is black in the moonlight and damp against his skin as she digs at it until she can’t feel her fingertips.

“Inquisitor?” Solas’ voice drifts across her ears but she ignores it, her hands shaking so badly that it takes several tries to remove the vial from where she keeps it tucked in a little compartment she had added to her boots. It glows in the moonlight, splashing a shimmering blue light across the wreck of snow and slush and dirt.

“ _Falon_?

She’s shaking so badly that she can’t get the fucking cork out of the top of the vial and has to resort to using her teeth. That close to her mouth she can all but smell the silvery rush, that taste of nectar and moonlight as it slips down her throat, and it makes her gag as she spits the cork into the snow.

“Catheryn?” Solas’ voice snaps across her this time, something wild and hard that makes her shiver as she upends the vial and watches the small fortune inside cascade down into the muddy hole. “Is Cullen alright?”

“Fine,” she mumbles, not taking her eyes from the lyrium. “He’ll be fine once we get out of this fucking nightmare.” It sits in a pearlescent puddle on top of the half-frozen ground, shifting and sliding around like droplets of molten metal before it begins to disappear into the earth. “He looks like shit but he’ll be fine,” she repeats, her entire body shaking on the inhale. “He’ll be _fine_.” Her voice breaks, a strangled sob falling from her lips as Solas’ arm slides around her shoulders.

“Protecting and proud,” Cole’s voice murmurs from the other side of the hole, the brim of his hat visible at the edges of her gaze as his hands reach across and cover her own. “He feels like quiet, stronger when you hold him.”

Catheryn nods, sniffling as the tears stream down her face, and lets them hold her as she watches until every drop of lyrium has disappeared into the mud.


	5. Light At the End of the Tunnel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... funny story. Ahem.
> 
> I was all set to put this chapter up a week and a half ago - on schedule - and then on my "one last read through" decided that NO. This needed something else. So I spent the next week and a half writing some 4000 plus words to bridge between the last chapter and this one. Some of it is even good. But then I did my customary "set it aside for 24 hours and then read the whole document/story in one fell swoop" and decided NOPE. The original flow was the better way.
> 
> The moral of the story? I cannot be trusted with writing decisions when I'm feeling hormonal. The struggle is real.
> 
> So, here is the chapter that you were supposed to get a week and a half ago and we will return to our regular scheduling on Monday.
> 
> Also, shout out to all of you lovely people that have left comments. I have been absolute shit about replying to them but I read and appreciate every single one!

“…does this mean that everything is lost unless we get to the Eluvian before him?”

Catheryn leans against the war table and stares at the expanse of southern Orlais and the flurry of markers and notes setting over the Arbor Wilds. It seems like such an innocuous place for a clash between an army and a would-be-god: nothing more than overgrown jungle and half crumbled ruins. Yet that is where all reports and sightings place what remains of his armies following Adamant, so it is there that they must go.

“Corypheus has a head start, no matter how quickly our army moves,” Cullen points out, which does nothing to reassure their nervous ambassador. “He’s been rebuilding his army there for the better part of a year.”

“Then we should finish gathering our allies before we march,” Josephine insists firmly.

“Can we wait for them?” Leliana counters instantly. “We should send our spies ahead to the Arbor Wilds.”

Cullen lets out an incredulous laugh and turns to face her, hands balanced on the pommel of his sword. He’s still paler than she’d like him to be, his cheekbones a little more prominent and the lines around his eyes a little sharper but the weeks that have passed since their raid on the Temple of Dumat have seen his return to moderate health.

Well, she no longer fears that he will pass it merely from walking across Skyhold and yesterday he resumed his sparring with Thom and the Iron Bull. That’s as good as it’s going to get.

It's certainly a vast improvement over their return, when he couldn't even dismount without Thom's assistance.

“Without support from our soldiers?” he scoffs with a shake of his head, “You’d lose half of them!”

“My, my – are they always like this?” Morrigan drawls in Catheryn’s ear.

“Not always, but it does happen from time to time,” she admits with a fond smile. Morrigan looks faintly disgusted and Catheryn laughs. “Now you see how I got stuck calling the shots even when I was nothing more than a prisoner. They’re brilliant but they need a mediating force…”

“Lovely,” the witch murmurs as Josephine overrides her companions’ protests with a frustrated,

“Then what _should_ we do?”

Catheryn plasters a smile on her face and straightens, her sudden movement capturing the attention of the trio arguing on the other side of the war table.  “Well, for starters we’re not going to let Corypheus worry us to death. Imagine how embarrassing _that_ would be.” Across the table Leliana freezes, a flicker of horror darting across her face at her lack of composure and Josephine clears her throat, shifting sheepishly on her feet. Cullen meets her gaze, the corner of his lips twitching in amusement as she surveys them. “Now, everyone take a deep breath and remember that _we are in this together_. Also, I have a brilliant, if somewhat _obvious_ , plan.”

Morrigan chokes.

“Now, Josephine, have our allies send scouts to meet us in the Wilds. Leliana, your fastest agents will join them. Together we’ll have enough spies to slow Corypheus down until Cullen’s troops arrive. I want that bastard to _bleed_ ,” she snarls, fingers flexing as she sets Cullen’s marker, the final of the three, down on the map. “I want him running around that fucking jungle in flat out _terror_ – am I clear? For three years we’ve been running wildly from one end of Thedas to the other to stop his insanity and for _once_ I want him to be the one running around in a panic.”

Leliana raises an eyebrow and acquiesces with a barely perceptible nod. “Of course,” from her the two words are high praise, the smile hovering at the corners of her mouth betraying how pleased she is with the proposed course of action.  Terror and destruction – _sneaky_ destruction – are almost as delightful as a shopping spree and an afternoon of pampering and delicious gossip.

“Inquisitor,” Josephine agrees, already writing furiously – no doubt making a list of who to contact and in what order.

“How long will it take to get the army there?” she asks, turning to Cullen.

The Commander scrunches his nose adorably, rubbing at the back of his neck as he stares at the map. “It will take the better part of a week to gather the bulk of our forces together. Another handful of days to iron out supplies, movements, and command – Josephine, if you could possibly have some of your contacts transport the bulk of the supplies we’d need and drop them at a secured location near the Wilds that would cut down on our preparation considerably.”

The ambassador’s frantic scribbling momentarily pauses as she looks up. “There are some merchants in Val Royeux that are particularly favorable to the Inquisition.  Get me a requisition for what you need and I will see that it gets there.”

Josephine Montilyet: Fucking Miracle Worker Extraordinaire.

“Beyond that…” Cullen shrugs, “two weeks hard march.”

Maker, it seems like forever and no time at all in the same moment. Catheryn takes a deep breath and then nods decisively.  No sense putting it off and letting the insane magister succeed just because she’s nervous.

“Such confidence,” Morrigan observes slyly, “but the Arbor Wilds are not so kind to visitors. Old Elven magic lingers in those woods.”

“It’s not the Elven magic that worries me,” Catheryn mutters, causing Morrigan’s elegant eyebrows to hike up to her hairline.

“That is dangerous,” she begins.

Catheryn cuts her off with a short laugh. “Everything is dangerous these days.” Besides, if their final showdown is going to be taking place amongst forgotten Elven ruins Morrigan can bet her skinny little ass that Catheryn will be keeping Solas close. The apostate’s Fade-wandering has given him more knowledge on the subject than she imagines Morrigan can ever hope to find.

Also, she doesn’t trust Morrigan. Not one single, fucking bit.

Josephine, peacemaker, instantly jumps in with a soothing, “We’d be remiss to not take advantage of your knowledge, Lady Morrigan. Please, lend us your expertise.”

“Tis why I came here, although it is good to see its value recognized,” the witch accepts haughtily with a sidelong glance of those sharp, yellow eyes. Catheryn returns the gaze coolly, unmoved and unperturbed.

“Any further instructions, Inquisitor?” Cullen’s soft question is an unmistakable flag of truce waved before them. One that she accepts after she’s turned her shoulder to the former Arcane Advisor.

“Get the ball rolling,” she orders and her voice doesn’t shake. She’ll have to congratulate herself for that later - probably with a bottle or two of wine and a bubble bath. Fuck knows she’s going to need it. “I know it’s still winter here but it’s already edging into spring there. Let’s see if we can’t stop Corypheus before he destroys the world and avoid melting in our armor at the same time.” She makes it sound like a joke – one that perhaps only Josephine, who has never marched around all day in heavy leathers and metal, buys – but both Leliana and Cullen nod in silent agreement.

She meets their gaze, each of them in turn, holding it until the silence in the room is almost overpowering. “The Inquisition began as a handful of soldiers,” she whispers, running her fingers across the map before her, her fingers walking the surface of a world she has helped save and shape, for better or worse. “Thanks to you, we’re now a force that will topple a self-proclaimed god. I didn’t ask for this – any of this. I didn’t _want_ any of this. I just wanted a world that wasn’t a battlefield.  I couldn’t… I couldn’t have managed even half as well without you. Were all world laid at my feet I could ask for no better council, no better guidance than what you have given me.” The smile that tugs on her face is filled with both sorrow and pride, both tempered with enduring affection. There will be time later, perhaps, for more intimate good byes between friends but she needs them to know this. To hear it here, where they have fought and cried and sweat. “Thank you.”

Cullen clears his throat roughly. “I speak for all of us, Inquisitor, when I answer: you could have given us no finer cause.”

“We’ll hound Corypheus in the Wilds before he can find the Temple or this ‘Eluvian’,” Leliana assures, the iron in her voice a kiss of a dangerous promise. “He will regret his ambitions before the end. We will see to it.”

Josephine sniffs nosily, dabbing at her eyes with a silken handkerchief pulled from her sleeve. “Well then,” she announces a little too brightly, “is there anything else?”

“No, not for now.” Catheryn looks at the bored, her fingers wrapping around her own marker as she places it squarely over the Arbor Wilds, the mark surging in her palm as the hollowed metal piece hits the table with an audible _thump_. “For now we are finished.”

 

* * *

 

The path to Cullen’s office is a familiar one. In the two years that they’ve lived in Skyhold it has become instinctive to the point that Catheryn has no doubt that she could find her way there from any point in the fortress. Blindfolded. It’s a fact that has stood her in good stead more times than she can count. Like today. Despite frequent defrosting by any mage with any remote aptitude for fire the grounds, battlements, and stairs of Skyhold are currently one gigantic icy deathtrap.

 _Fucking stairs_ , Catheryn growls inwardly as she edges up them. It’s slow going. She could, she knows, simply melt the ice and sprint up the stairs before they freeze again behind her but frankly the idea of expanding that much mana right now is too much. She’s exhausted already - exhausted in a way that she hasn’t been since the days and weeks immediately following the loss of her daughter. It’s not just a physical exhaustion or even the tense, mental weariness that frequently follows a session at the War Table. This is a weight that pulls at every bit of her – every single ounce of thought and heart and flesh – until it feels like it takes monumental effort just to fill her lungs with air, let alone lift her feet up ice sheathed steps.

Cullen’s office feels hot in comparison, almost stifling, and it makes something ease in her chest. Not so long ago the room would have been freezing, warmer only than the mountains outside by the virtue of having sturdy walls that blocked the wind, and the man who worked within would have refused more than token brazier. The fact that he now has a stone stove installed in the corner of his office, a fire roaring in its belly and a tea kettle sitting on top, is enough to make tears prick at the corners of her eyes.

He may still think he is weak – and she knows that he does – but at least he no longer refuses help. At least not from her and select others.

“Bad news?” she asks as she shuts the door behind her.

Cullen starts and looks up from the report he’s holding in his hand, fist clenching until the paper crumples in his grasp. “What? Oh… er… no, actually,” he frowns at the report, smoothing it as he puts it down. “It’s just a report concerning the destruction of the red lyrium at the Shrine of Dumat.”

Catheryn acknowledges with a quiet, “Ah” as she crosses to the desk.

“It just… hardly seems real,” he murmurs, still staring at the report. “The red lyrium deposits are being destroyed – not just at the Shrine but across the whole of Thedas – and  we’ve cut the Red Templars down to the core.” The words are tense, rehearsed – a report of a job well done that lacks any of the relief and joy that she expects.

She perches on the edge of his desk and takes his hand in her own, ghosting a kiss across the palm as she begins to rub some warmth into his fingers. “But…?” she prompts quietly.

Cullen sighs, his entire form folding in on itself as he slumps against her leg. “Maddox,” he whispers. “That he thought his sacrifice was the only answer…” He shakes beneath her touch, a violent flinch of regret, as if the mere memory is a hot, searing burn that brands his flesh. “I did that. I did _that_ to him. I…” His voice breaks as he wraps his arms around her and presses his face into her stomach

“Shhh…” Catheryn soothes, bringing her own arms around him and holding him tightly. “It will be alright. You’re not that man anymore,” she whispers into his hair. “You’re not him and we know now that Tranquility can be reversed. We couldn’t save him, but we’ll be able to save others. _You’ll_ be able to save others. I promise.”

Another shudder wracks his frame but he nods into her abdomen, his breath hot through the fabrics of shirt and coat. Catheryn is content to stay like that for a while, fingers tracing meaningless patterns across his back and shoulders, while she breathes slowly and carefully, letting him regulate himself by the steadiness of her own heart.

“I love you,” he whispers against her lips when he finally pulls away, his fingers reverent against her face.

“I love you too,” she murmurs back.

Cullen inhales deeply and settles back into his chair, keeping a hand on her thigh as he leans back. They sit in silence for some time and slowly she feels the tremors in his hand die down to occasional spasms. She covers his hand with her own and squeezes softly, earning a small smile as he continues, “Samson is now left with a severely curtailed army and enchanted armor that he can’t maintain. You did it.”

Catheryn snorts. “ _We_ did it,” she corrects. “Don’t sell yourself short, my dear Commander. You’ve worked just as hard as I have. Harder, even.”

“Well, I - ” his cheeks turn pink beneath her gaze. “Thank you,” he mumbles, clearing his throat. “I don’t… I don’t always feel like I contribute as much as I should. But I… thank you. Still, there’s so much more to do. We’re not done yet.”

Catheryn smiles. “I don’t think we’ll ever be done,” she admits. “I…”

The bang of a door slamming open makes both of them jump, a storm of lightning running up Catheryn’s arm as she turns.

“Commander! Inquisitor! I finished it! Oh, are you talking?” Dagna blinks at them, a pleased grin slapped across her face. “Sorry. Or not. Just… have it anyway!” she exclaims brightly, shoving a rune across the desk at them.

Catheryn swipes it up before Cullen can touch it, the mute discordance of corrupted lyrium growing stronger once it is touching her skin. “You mean this rune?” Catheryn asks mildly, holding it as far away from Cullen as she possibly can. “You make runes all the time. This one is just...”

“Special,” the dwarf breaks in happily. “It’s not just _any_ rune. I made it with red lyrium and what was left of poor Maddox’s tools. The rune acts on the median fissures of lyrium to… never mind that,” she waves her hands a little, like she’s waving smoke away from her face. “It will destroy Samson’s armor,” she stresses, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. “He’ll be powerless.”

The smile that breaks across Cullen’s face at her words is bright enough to bring the whole of the Orlesian nobility to their knees.  “We’ll cut Corypheus off from his most powerful general. Take away the armor and you’re not just taking away his defenses, you’re taking away his lyrium. Maker’s breath, as much as he’s taking the shock alone might kill him.”

“I don’t think it will be _quite_ that easy,” Catheryn murmurs as she turns the rune over in her hands, studying it carefully. “But I suppose I can always hope.” She says it lightly, with a sarcastic quirk of her lips that makes Dagna laugh and Cullen shake his head, but she’d have to blind to miss the way the Commander’s eyes follow the object in her hand.

It’s not want that she sees in them. It’s not even pain.

It’s hope.  A fragile, tiny belief that maybe, just maybe, things are finally, truly tipping in their favor.


	6. Never Go In Against a Sicilian When Death is on the Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ... or at least never bet against an Antivan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, quite possibly, my favorite cut scene.

“ _There_ you are!” Varric’s voice, evenly split between _I’m-about-to-throttle-you-while-I-kiss-you_ frustration and relief makes her jump as she comes out of Solas’ rotunda. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”

Catheryn blinks. “I’ve been…” she points over her shoulder to the sliver of the apostate’s workspace still visible through the closing door, “… since supper. Before supper. We ate at the desk.”

Varric waves a hand between them, clearing away the words before they can fill the air. “We almost had to start without you,” he informs her, the seriousness of his tone at odds with the complete shit-eating grin on his face.

“Please,” she mutters, “like you could start _anything_ without me.”

The dwarf takes a step back, hand spread over his heart like he’s staunching a bleeding wound. “Hey!” he protests, “I’ll have you know that I’ve started plenty of stuff!”

“You forget that I’ve spent a considerable amount of time with Hawke.”

“Lies,” he mutters, “slander and lies!”

“Mmm… and think of how many books it sells.”

Varric smirks. “There is that,” he agrees. “Now come on, Kitten. Everybody is waiting.”

Catheryn can’t help the suspicious look that she gives the dwarf. She wouldn’t put it past him to have orchestrated some elaborate bet that involved him getting her do a bunch of weird things. “Waiting for what… exactly?”

“You’ll see, Kitten, c’mon. It’ll be good. I promise.”

And she trusts him, always, so she follows.

 

* * *

 

The light and the heat and the noise of the tavern are a shock after the cold, howling, stillness of the courtyard. Varric leads her past the tables of talking soldiers, their conversations lulling as she passes, straight back to the Inquisitor’s Room.  It’s not any quieter there.

Catheryn stops in the entrance, momentarily stunned at the scene before her. The handful of tables that normally occupy the space have been pulled to the center of the room and pushed together to form a table that allows them all to sit around it. Its surface is littered with candles and drinks, stray coins glinting in the firelight. But mostly it’s the sight of all the people that her heart holds most dear sitting in a single location that does her in. It makes her waver just inside the door, clutching at it for a moment to steady herself before she continues into the room.

She’s not sure what stuns her more. Is it Cullen sitting beside Thom and laughing so hard that tears run down his face, tankard raised in salute? Or Solas, who she swears she just left minutes ago, leaning against the table, a small smile on his lips as he surveys the boisterous crew of her companions with a look of fondness?  Or maybe it’s Dorian and Cassandra sitting side by side – the altus gesturing wildly with his free hand as he tries, and fails, to explain to Cassandra just why her last hand had been so abominably bad and Cassandra is listening with an intentness and respect that she normally reserves for the most chaotic of battles.

Or maybe it’s the fact that she suddenly feels _whole_ for the first time in days.

Varric smirks at her, the silent stretch of his lips saying _See? I told you so._ “I found her, Ruffles!” he adds as he motions her to the empty seat between Dorian and Cullen. “Deal her in!” Taking a deep breath she takes that final step and lets the room wash over her, the energies and voices swirling around her like some great silken cloak in the wind. Thom looks up and smiles in greeting, catching her hand and squeezing it gently as she walks by.

Josephine beams up at her. “I do hope I recall the rules,” she murmurs. “It’s been _so long_ since I’ve played a game of Wicked Grace.”

Catheryn snorts as she takes her seat. If _that_ happens to be true then she’ll chop off her hand and send it to Corypheus herself. Gift-wrapped. And maybe with a nice bottle of wine. Bull catches her eye from across the table, the tiny grin playing at the corner of his mouth saying that he believes the ambassador’s words about as much as she does.

“We playing cards or what?” he grunts with a roll of his eye.

“Are three drakes better than a pair of swords?” Cassandra worries. “I can never remember.” She lets out a disgusted sound and throws her cards onto the table, nudging them in Josie’s direction.

Cassandra, Catheryn is sure, is _not_ faking.

A fact that Varric confirms a second later. “Seeker, remember how I told you ‘ _Don’t show anyone your hand?’_ That includes announcing it at the table!” Cassandra blushes beneath his words and she stares down at her hands, fingers laced together on the scarred wooden tabletop. “Just remember what I taught you,” the dwarf all but purrs, his voice a deep rumble in the barrel of his chest, “and you’ll be just fine.”

If anything, Cassandra’s cheeks get pinker.

“There’s a crown on his head, but a sword, too,” Cole announces. “His head didn’t want either.” He sounds a little dazed, his eyes a little wild as they flicker to hers from underneath the brim of his hat. It’s the first time he’s come across cards with personality then. Maker, that’s a surprise. What in the world does he do with Varric if the dwarf isn’t playing cards?

“Don’t talk to the face cards, Kid!” Varric warns with an affectionate shake of his head. “They’ll just talk back.” Cole blinks owlishly and stares at the cards fluttering between Josephine’s hands with a look of mild concern plastered across his face.

“I’m glad you made it,” Cullen murmurs as he brushes a kiss across her lips.  She squeezes his hand beneath the table, weaving her fingers through his.  “This is… nice… but if you weren’t going to be here I have a _thousand_ things to do….”

“Losing money can be both pleasing and habit forming,” Dorian interrupts with a smug little grin. “Give it a try.” There’s a twitch to one side of his mustache that Catheryn doesn’t trust. Nothing good comes of the mustache twitch. A conviction that is not helped, in the slightest, by the seemingly random outbreak of giggles from a certain ambassador on the other side of the table.

“I’ve got my eye on you,” she warns with a pointed finger.

Dorian smirks. “Of course you do, Lovely. I look spectacular in this shade of purple.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” Cullen mumbles, ignoring the exchange entirely as he stares down at the cards that suddenly appear before him, arriving via careful, controlled flicks of Josie’s wrist. “Cards are not my strong point.”

“That’s not something you really want to admit to a room full of card sharks,” Thom points out, giving Cullen’s shoulder a hearty slap that makes the younger man shake his head.

“Forget that,” Varric tells the ex-Templar with a firm look. “Just have fun.” When Cullen gives him a still dubious look – slightly ruined by the contented smile on his lips – Varric rolls his eyes. “Look, Curly, if any man in the history of _ever_ needed a hobby it’s you.”

“I’ve got hobbies…”

“... and I’m not talking about poking things with your sword,” the storyteller continues blithely in a tone of voice that provokes a violent, drunken laugh from underneath the table.

“ _Swords_ ,” Sera sings. Loudly. And off key.

“That wasn’t… I wouldn’t… I didn’t…” Cullen bangs the front of his head on the table top. “ _Maker’s breath_.”

 “His sword work _is_ excellent…” Catheryn admits and chokes back the giggle that rises in her throat as the tips of Cullen’s ears turn scarlet. Bull’s laughter shakes the whole table.

“Dealer starts!” announces Josephine once the laughter has died enough to for everyone to hear her.  “Oooh… I believe… I’ll start at… three coppers! Or is that too daring? Maybe I’ll make it one… No. Boldness! Three it is!”

“Seriously?” Bull asks as he sends a handful of gleaming coins rolling across the tabletop. “Who starts at three coppers? _Silvers_ or go home!” he yells at the ambassador, who has the grace to look moderately sheepish.

Thom chuckles. “Sounds good to me. I’m in.”

“Bolder the better, right? I’m in.” Dorian agrees.

 “Yes.” Cassandra sounds much more certain than she looks.

Cullen groans and shoves the requisite number of coins to the center of the table. “I’m going to bloody regret this…”

 “I’m in. What about you, Kitten? You in?”

“After all the trouble you went in to drag me here? You bet your chest hair I’m in.”

 “Whoa now… the chest hair is _not_ on the table. Not on the table.”

 “What a pity. I had thought that I might burn it off later,” Solas muses as he adds his own money to the pile. “Surely, there is a bounty on it somewhere.”

 “Andraste’s flaming ass! _The chest hair is not – and never will be – on the table!”_ the dwarf thunders indignantly as he shoves his coins into the center. “Watch it, Chuckles,” he warns with a threatening jab of his finger.

 “You do not frighten me, Child of Stone. I do not possess any hair for you to burn off.”

 “Just because… wait, not _any_?”

 “…Inquisitor! I’m _so_ glad that you decided to join us!” Josephine interrupts in a spirited, slightly high pitched burst.

 “Me too, Josie,” she agrees, still laughing at the smug, knowing smile on Solas’ lips.

 “Alright, alright. Enough _talk_. Ante up, Kitten.”

 

* * *

              

“…then Alistair ran out into the dining hall in nothing but his knickers,” Cullen recalls fondly, shaking his head. The entire table is staring at him, absolutely enthralled by the sight of the Commander relaxed and engaged. He’s an entirely different man with a smile on his lips and laughter that reaches his eyes. She has seen him before, this real him, and she treasures each sighting like the rarest of gems. She hoards them in her heart like the precious treasure that they are.  “And this… _profound_ silence fell over the hall as seventy mages and thirty Templars all turned to stare at once. Then a slow round of applause began, and spread until every soul was on their feet – a standing ovation.”

Josephine giggles, excitement and drink turning her cheeks rosy as she leans forward and asks, “What did he do?”

“Saluted, turned on his heel, and marched out like he was in full armor,” the Commander replies, the very faintest bits of pink coloring the arches of his cheekbones as he settles back into seat.

“He did not!” Cassandra protests as Thom loses his composure, throwing back his head and letting out a deep, full throated laugh.

“Good man,” Dorian remarks approvingly and both sides of his mustache twitch.

“You’re shitting us,” Bull protests with a shake of his head and wave of his massive hand.

Cullen shakes his head, pressing his lips together even as he smiles so broadly it nearly cuts his face in half.

“That’s how you _know_ it’s true!” Varric protests, “I could never put that in a book! It’s too unlikely.”

 “Alright, Mr. Fancy-Pants-Storyteller, your turn,” Catheryn orders. “Regale us with a tale!”

Varric protests with false modesty but after a few moments of “C’mon, Varric!” and “Oh, make it something romantic!” and various other suggestions the dwarf gives in. “Have I ever told you about the time that Hawke and I…” he begins and they’re off in another whirlwind of words and cards and fresh drinks, all which leave them breathless and laughing in the dim, golden light.

 

* * *

 

Two rounds of drinks and fresh torches later Josephine makes the entire room groan good naturedly as she announces brightly, “And the dealer takes everything. I win again!”

Cullen shakes his head, leaning across the table to point accusingly. “Deal again,” he demands, definitely sounding like he’s breached his regular one drink limit. “I’ve figured out your tells, Lady Ambassador!” Catheryn presses her face to his shoulder to hide her laughter.  Because if there’s anything that Cullen should know after working with Josie for three years is that the woman has no tells.

“Commander! Everyone knows a lady doesn’t have any tells!”

 “Ah, but the same cannot be said of smartly dressed Antivan card hustlers,” Dorian murmurs, a comment that makes Cassandra dissolve into a fit of unrestrained giggling as she leans against his shoulder.

“Well, then let’s see if your good fortune lasts one more hand,” Cullen challenges.

Catheryn chokes on her drink, a familiar, calculating glint glowing  in the ambassador's eyes.

“I want another chance to win back my dignity,” she mutters as she looks up from Cullen’s shoulder, her own still shaking with the silent acceptance of their impending doom. “Deal me in.”

Dorian’s mustache twitches so hard it nearly falls off his face.

 

* * *

 

  _It could be worse_ , Catheryn muses, so amused that she’s having a hard time catching her breath. It could definitely be worse. She’s not so sure it could be _better_ though, because this… this is good. Oh, so fucking _good_.

Cullen, naked as the day he was born, all of that golden skin on gleaming display, glowers darkly at Varric – who has, naturally, whipped out a scrap of paper and a pen and is frantically scribbling something on it.

“Hey!” he cries accusingly as the edges begin to smoke and a flame bursts up out of the center of it.

“Not. A. Word. _Dwarf_ ,” Cullen growls warningly and the rest of the table erupts into another round of choked laughter.

“I _tried_ to warn you, Curly,” Varric replies patiently, brushing the ashes of his notes off the table with a slightly forlorn look. Catheryn doesn’t buy it. She knows him. As soon as he returns to his rooms he’ll no doubt write down anything and everything he can remember about tonight – including the way Cullen’s pectorals glisten enticingly as he pouts. It’s really not quite fair how good looking he is.

" _Never_ bet against an Antivan, Commander,” Josephine warns. She gleefully gathers her winnings into a neat pile – everything but the Commander’s clothing and armor, which sat in a semi-organized heap off to the side. Cullen groans and buries his head in his hands.

“I regret this,” he mutters but he doesn’t sound nearly as angry or embarrassed as she thought he might.

Cassandra stands, steadying herself with a hand on Dorian’s shoulder. “Well, I’m leaving. I don’t want to witness our Commander’s walk of shame.”

“Well, I do!” Dorian insists as he drags and appreciating look over Cullen’s partially hidden form.  “Mmm. And the redeeming qualities of Ferelden are revealed.”

“It comes off! I didn’t know it came off!”

Catheryn lays her head on the table and laughs and for a moment – a wonderful, blessed moment filled with laughter and warmth and catcalls – the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

 

* * *

 

She’s still laughing, the sight of a very naked Cullen making a mad dash out the side door imprinted on her mind for forever, as she joins Varric in front of the fireplace. She’s a bit surprised at the route he chose – having thought that he’d make a break for the upper levels and pause to steal some sort of coverage from Bull’s room before heading out to his office, where she knows he stores an extra set of clothes – but considering she’s seen him drink more tonight than she has in the past three months she’s not _that_ surprised.

 “I didn’t really think he’d do it,” Varric muses, catching the drift of her thoughts. “Got to hand it to Curly – the man’s got balls.”

“ _Obviously._ ” Catheryn can’t help the rather juvenile giggle that leaks out of her mouth. Varric, who has drunk markedly less than he made it appear, still manages to choke on his own tongue. Even Thom, who is the only other person left in the room, chortles from over in the corner where he is gathering up the Commander’s discarded armor for transport back to her rooms.

 “Oh, Kitten… I’m glad you decided to join us tonight,” Varric tells her as his laughter fades. “It’s too easy to mistake you for the Inquisitor.”

Catheryn cocks her head to the side, brows furrowing as she tries to puzzle out his words. It’s too late and her mind too relaxed to make much sense of it. “You’re… mistaking me for me?” she finally just asks. “How much did you have to drink?”

Fixing her with a piercing look, Varric crosses his arms across his chest – magnificent hair still present – and shakes his head. “That’s not what I meant, Sunshine,” he murmurs quietly, his voice as serious as she has ever heard it. Calm and steady, but as serious as the business end of a sword, and completely void of his usual lighthearted nature and abundant sarcasm. Despite the slight hazy buzz echoing through her veins it makes her sit up and listen, a proper pupil gathered at a master’s knee. “It’s an easy to forget that you’re not just an icon or a symbol, like those statues of Andraste holding bowls of fire. At least it is for me and I imagine it is for you too.”

Inhaling sharply she looks away, blinking against the sudden pricking of tears in the corners of her eyes.

Varric’s right, of course. But he’s wrong, too.

“It’s a hard thing you do, Kitten. A hard thing.”

Catheryn shuts her eyes. “ _Yes_.”

Varric touches her arm and clears his throat. “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… Here,” he shoves an embroidered piece of silk into her hand. “Take this. You know I’m not good at feelings – can’t stand to see a beautiful woman cry.”

She snorts a little at that but accepts the handkerchief and dabs at the liquid trying to force its way out through her lashes. Stupid, fucking tears. She’s so tired of crying. “Says the man who makes a living with his silver tongue,” she mutters. She takes a careful deep breath, the type that inflates her entire chest until her ribs hurt with the strain, and exhales shakily.

“Well normally I try to make people laugh with it instead of cry…”

“…you’ve read your own books, right?” She deadpans as she returns the slightly damp cloth, which Varric makes disappear up his shirt sleeve with a slight flick of his hand.

“That hurts, Kitten. That’s hurtful.”

“So is most of _Swords and Shields_ – and Cassandra’s made me read them. Twice.”

“Seeker… Andraste’s ass, I never saw that one coming,” Varric chuckles with a shake of his head. “So… you up for another round when all of this is over?

“Of course,” she replies, the lie rolling off her tongue. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

She won’t be here when all of this is over but in the dim, back room of a tavern with the echoes of laughter and love ringing in her ears it’s easy to forget that.


	7. A Chemical, Physical, Emotional Devotion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This gets a bit NSFW ;)

“Maker’s fucking balls!” Thom growls as they rush through the entrance, practically tripping over their own feet in their hurry to slam the door behind them. Catheryn collapses at the base of the stairs and howls, laughing so hard that tears stream down her face as she clutches at her sides. “Did they have to do it _there_?”

“ _YES_!” Catheryn gasps, crowing with victory between great hiccupping gasps. “ _Fucking yes!_ Varric owes me a hundred sovereigns. I knew it! I knew they wouldn’t be able to resist forever!”

“How can you be okay with that?” Thom retorts, but his own chest is shaking enough that the armor held in his arms is clinking as it rubs together. “That’s your throne! You have to sit there and they… they’ve…”

Thom’s mouth hangs open for a moment because apparently he can’t think of the appropriate description for the carnal acrobatics currently on display in the main hall. He’d always known Dorian was flexible – anyone that had ever watched the little shit fight could tell you that – but _Bull…_

 _Nope,_ he tells himself firmly, _you are not thinking about it. Not one single fucking bit._

“They’ve given me a great gift. I’ve been waiting for this day for almost nine months,” Catheryn smirks, her face flushed with cold, drink, and their mad dash past the contorted pair on the Inquisitor’s throne.  “Next up: Solas’ desk. Oh, please,” she adds, catching the horrified look on his face. “You know Dorian will have to do it. At least once. Just to drive Solas crazy.”

“That should not make any sense,” he tells her, but he’s laughing again because it absolutely does.  Catheryn’s right, of course, it’s only a matter of time until it happens.

“Adraste’s tits, Solas is going to kill him,” Thom breathes and he’s only half joking.

“Nah,” Catheryn waves away his concern with a flick of her wrist as she collapses against the rise of the stairs, abdomen still shaking in silent laughter. “He might light him on fire though. Or freeze all of his wine. Maker, that’ll be a nightmare… Do you think they’ll listen to me if I give an Official Proclamation that states that a certain desk is off limits?”

“Only if by _listen_ you mean _do it there as soon as humanly possible_ ,” Thom grunts as he looks down at her. The light in her eyes is back, chasing away the seriousness that her talk with Varric had brought to her face.

She tips her head back, exposing the long line of her throat and letting out a bark of laughter that can only be agreement. “Yeah… horny bastards,” she smirks affectionately and that grin – equal parts wickedness and unabashed happiness is enough to make his head spin. The creamy stretch of her neck and the dip of her throat where it meets her shoulder draws his eyes and makes his mouth dry with the sudden surge of want that shoots down his spine.

He can still feel it, sometimes, the way she felt beneath him, the way she felt above him. He’ll wake up panting and desperate with the phantom of her skin rolling against his making his entire body tingle. He’ll hear her sometimes, out of nowhere, his subconscious calling to mind that wondrous hitch to her breath and the way she cried his name as she came apart around his tongue and fingers and cock. Mostly though he remembers the way she tastes – not between her legs, though Maker save him the memory of that is enough to make him come rutting against the bed beneath him, but her skin. The soft tender skin or the pucker of scars, it doesn’t matter. It tastes of her – salty and sweet, with the floral overlay of her soap and tang of her sweat. He can still feel the give of her flesh beneath his teeth, still feel the way her entire body shuddered and arched as he worried it until there was a mark for all to see.

_Mine. Maker, you’re mine. Mine and let everyone fucking see it…_

He remembers and it’s dangerous.

Thom swallows and presses his back against the thick wood of the door, though fuck if he knows whether it’s to hold himself up or put some distance between his mouth and hands and her skin. “We should probably get these back to Cullen,” he says and his voice sounds like he’s been chewing on gravel.

Catheryn goes silent, her entire body going still beneath his gaze. She inhales once, sharply, her eyes nothing but dark pools in the flickering light on the stairs. “I… yes,” she finally agrees. “He’ll want them in the morning.”

If her voice is huskier than normal, well, Maker surely that is all in his mind – a product of memories relived too often and too many drinks in the space of a few hours. But Andraste preserve him, because there’s definitely an extra swing to her hips as she mounts the stairs in front of him.

Thom follows.

The large expansive room at the top of the narrow stairs – built so that a single man could hold them against invaders, if necessary – is flush with light from the roaring flames in the fireplace that’s taller than he is and a pair of thick candles set on the bedside tables. It’s a soft, golden glow that leaves the cavernous vaulted ceiling and the far corners of the room nothing but shadows, the threads in the thick tapestries covering the windows and doors to the balconies glinting in the flicker of light and making the walls themselves shimmer. Once the room had been artfully decorated with the finest furnitures, linens, and décor that Thedas could provide. Not anymore. All of the carefully chosen pieces, many of them gifts from very important people, had met their end on the eastern balcony where Catheryn had piled them up and lit them on fire in a well-deserved fit of frustration.

Now it looks like a library got together with a slightly seedy tavern, had a wild drunken night with all of their friends, and come out of it with half a dozen children that vaguely resembled them in some way. The furniture is all sturdy, the desk itself almost as big as the war table with a surface marred from constant use. There’s even a throwing knife shoved into one corner of it, a flutter of parchment pinned beneath its point. There’s a handful of bookshelves crowding the inner walls of the room, filled to the overflowing with books, maps, charts, and assorted potion bottles. The corner near the fire and in front of the largest expanse of – now covered – doors sports a handful of potted plants. He doesn’t know their names but knows that they’re rare enough for Catheryn to take clippings and baby them all the way back to Skyhold. The fine stone floor is covered in layers of thick rugs. Some are works of art. Some are simple braided things. All of them are deep earthy tones and warm colors that bring life into the space. The only thing in the space that gives the impression of luxury is the bed. It’s a monstrous, behemoth thing that Catheryn had custom made in Val Royeux. It’s big enough to fit almost the entirety of the Inner Circle – the Iron Bull included – without crowding and its entire length and width are made up with the softest of furs and blankets, its head piled high with goose down pillows. Despite the bed and quarters he has made for himself in the stables since their arrival at Skyhold he sleeps here more nights than not – at least for the past five months. Sometimes as nothing more than a comforting, warm presence in her bed – a solid reassurance that she is not alone. Sometimes as sacrifice, offering up whatever comfort and solace his miserable body can give her when the nightmares wake her gasping and crying in the dark of the night.

 There’s an empty armor stand in the corner near the bed, next to an impressively sized wardrobe, so that’s where Thom goes. His muscles move with long ingrained memory to put the pieces into their proper place and he can’t decide if he should bless or curse that fact. Bless it, because he doesn’t have to think about armor. Curse it, for the same fucking reason.

“He’s in the bath, I think,” Catheryn murmurs and the sound of her voice makes him jump a little. “There’s a coat on the floor by the door to the inner chamber.” She points but he doesn’t look. He can’t. She’s too close. So close that he can smell her – lavender and sweat and ozone beneath the tangle of wine and beer and tea and too many overly sweet Orlesian pastries. “I need to hang up the coat,” she adds when he doesn’t speak or move or… anything, really.

 _Oh, you poor fucking bastard_ , he thinks to himself but he moves. He tries too, anyway, but half a step backward and he’s trapped up against the side of the wardrobe, the polished wood cool against his back. There isn’t enough room between him and the armor stand but she shimmies in anyway, twisting and wriggling her way in until she stands before the Commander’s armor. An elegant shrug and a twist of her shoulders leaves Cullen’s easily recognizable fur-lined coat hanging from her hands.

Without thinking he reaches around her and grasps the fur collar of the coat, caging her fists with his. Together they swing it around the back of the stand and hang it off the shoulders. She has to go up on her tiptoes to reach that far and the movement rolls the line of her spine and the curve of her ass up the front of his body.

Thom swallows.

“My lady…” he breathes. Her fingers are cool beneath his, the muscles in her forearms trembling slightly as he drags his fingertips up and down the cloth clad skin. His heart is hammering so fast in his chest that he can feel it leaping against his ribs.

“Thom…” it’s not even a whisper, just the faintest stirring of breath in front of her lips. If she hadn’t tipped her head back and turned it upwards just a bit he wouldn’t have even caught it. But she had and he does, and he feels that soft sight of his name like a punch to gut.

Her lips are soft beneath his, her mouth warm against the flick of his tongue. She tastes of the tea she’d been sipping by the end of the evening – something floral, with a hint of a bite at the end – and the Ferelden Ale she’d been sipping before then. She tastes of sweetness and sunlight – of _her_ and every wonderful thing that it entails.

“Catheryn…” he whispers her name against her lips, over and over, a soft litany as he peppers her face with kisses. “ _Please_ ,” and he doesn’t even know what, exactly, he’s asking because all he can think and feel and breathe and see is the woman in his arms. She does this too him. Always has. Breaks him down until he can’t think, until he can’t remember anything he’s learned in the forty blighted years he’s been alive. When she fills his senses like this it’s all he can do to remember how to breathe, let alone all the tricks he’s learned about how to please a woman.

The last time they did this he had his imminent death hanging over his head to buffer him against the all-consuming response that her presence raises in his body.

All he has left this time is instinct and even that is floundering.

She moves in his arms like a slippery, silver fish dancing on a line, ducking and twisting so that suddenly they are chest to chest and her fingers are threading themselves through his hair as she kisses him back. Oh, Maker, it’s as good as he remembered it. Not the soft sweetness that they’d shared outside of the Shrine of Dumat, though that had been good too. No, this is the possessive nip of teeth and the plundering of tongues. It’s the kiss that doesn’t stop until your eyesight is blurry and your lungs are burning.

And it is so, so fucking good.

Thom can’t stop the growl that rumbles around his chest as her nails drag against the tender skin of his scalp.

It’s good, oh fucking Maker, so good, but it’s not enough. Not nearly enough. Not now. Maybe not ever.

Thom lets his hands slide down her side, feeling the way her body – hardened with muscle and soft all at the same time – shivers beneath his touch. Without thought he wraps his hands around that delicious ass and hoists her into the air, dragging her up the line of his body until her legs snap around his waist.

 _Fuck_.

The heat of her, blazing and moist, can be felt through the four layers of clothing that separate them and behind the laces of his breeches and the worn cotton of his smalls his cock jerks in approval and desperation.

_Yes. Fuck. Good. More. Not enough. Not even close to enough._

He’s not the only one that thinks so either.

Distantly he’s aware of the sharp intake of breath behind him, of the slight _thud_ of something hitting the floor, and he twists slightly, turning toward the soft pad of footsteps that he feels more than hears.

Catheryn gasps against his lips, head falling back to reveal Cullen standing behind her, the back of her skull cradled tenderly in the hand he has slid through her hair.  There’s a blush on the Commander’s cheeks, but no hesitation in movements as he pulls her head back and presses his mouth to hers.

It’s not a soft kiss. Beyond the tumble of blonde curls, Cullen grips her tight and fucks her mouth with his tongue in a way that makes her entire body tremble in his arms, those fucking musical mewls falling between their lips.

Thom swallows, his hips snapping up into the press of that wiggling heat before he can stop them.

Catheryn swears. Or he thinks she swears.

Not in objection though, if the increase of pressure around his torso and the tight tug of her fingers in his hair and shirt are any indication.

 _Fucking Maker,_ he gasps, banging the back of his head against the wardrobe as Cullen’s other hand slips down her torso, spanning the heaving mounds of her breasts with the length of his fingers in such a way that he isn’t _quite_ touching the nipples Thom can see pebbling beneath the stretch of top and breastband. Instead he flexes his hand with a strained, vibrating strength as their lips finally part.

“Tell me that this is okay,” he gasps as he presses their foreheads together, breathing heavily. “Tell me that this is what you want.” The strain in Cullen’s voice matches the ache in Thom’s balls, but the words themselves bring him back from the brink and forcing him into a blank, white sort of calm. He waits, patient and drifting, a moorless boat rocking on the sea.

“Yes,” she breathes against Cullen’s lips, so soft that her consent is nearly lost to him. “Yes,” she repeats more firmly. “ _Yes_.”

Sweet, fucking Maker it is the most beautiful sound in the world.

   

* * *

              

Catheryn stares up at the two men standing at the side of the bed, fingers curling through the fine linens and furs to keep herself from sitting up all the way and reaching for them. Once she reaches for them it will be all over, the gesture snapping whatever control hovers in the air between them. She wants to look at them first, wants to drink in the sight of them and burn it against the inside of her skull. She wants to make sure she remembers this, always, for however much time she has left.

Cullen is trembling, she can see it from halfway across the orgy-sized monstrosity that is her bed. A fine, faint tremor races along muscles coiled tight beneath his skin, the tension – and a little nervousness, judging by the faint streaks of pink along the arch of his cheekbones – of holding himself back making his entire body hum. That he wants her, that he wants _this_ , is not even a question. She can read it written in every line of his body; see the proof of his desire tenting the threadbare cotton pants slung low on his hips. He’s beautiful – there is no doubt about that – but it’s the look in his eyes that makes her shiver in response, the predatory gleam  pinning her to the bed with an intensity that makes her mouth go dry.

He smirks a little when she whines, the movement pulling tantalizingly at the thin scar that bisects his lip.

Shuddering, Catheryn has to look away or lose control. She’s not done looking yet.

Of course, if she’d been stupid enough to think that looking at Thom would give her any sort of relief from the tension in the room then she’d have been wrong. So very, very wrong.

He’s looking at her like she’s the whole of the entire world. Like she’s every Satinalia present he’s ever wished for, let alone received, all wrapped up and dumped in his lap in a single moment. Like she’s the breath in his lungs and the blood in his veins.

Not much has changed about his appearance in the nearly three years she’s known him. His face is a little thinner and he’s kept the beard but it’s trimmed a little shorter these days, hugging the strong lines of his jaw and emphasizing the fullness of his lips.  Despite the passing of time and the addition of a few more strands of gray among his thick, dark hair he looks younger, more alive, than he had that day at the lake.

His desire is plain on his face, an aching _want_ that she can feel, a longing to touch and hold and keep. The fear – the _expectation_ \- that he will be refused, that he will turned away even now is not as visible but it is there. She can see it, a shadow hovering behind the desire and the want, a demon peering around the corner of his irises.

She can fix that.

He swears – or prays – under his breath as she crawls across the bed towards him on her hands and knees.

“Thom.” He shudders beneath the sound of his name and shuts his eyes. His muscles flex beneath her fingertips as she rests them on the warm skin of his abdomen, thumbs swiping gently at the top of his breeches. “Thom, look at me,” she requests softly. She waits, coiled on the surface of the bed, until he takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. “Is this what you want? Are you okay with this?”

“Yes. Maker’s balls, _yes_ ,” he responds instantly. His touch is feather light against her hair, fingers shaking like a leaf in the wind as he runs them through the kinks of her unbraided hair.

Catheryn shivers beneath his touch, unable to stop herself from leaning into the caress. “Are you sure? We don’t…”

“I’m sure. I just…” he cups her face between his hands and the reverence in his touch makes her bones ache.  “I want this so much that it scares me,” he admits. “The last time I wanted something this much…” he presses his lips against the ugliness of the memories that rise with his words.

“This is not then,” Catheryn tells him. “And you are not that man anymore.”

“Aren’t I, though?”

“You’re not,” Cullen assures, his voice still rough, the edge of desire prowling around the room with all the restless violence of a caged lion. There’s a soft sort of peace to his face that doesn’t match his voice. It’s the face he wore that day on the battlements, when she declared her feelings for him. It’s the look that says, despite everything, he’ll wait. He’ll wait as long as he needs too. “If you had been I would have killed you.”

The steady declaration – one warrior to another – uncurls the unwelcome tension in Thom’s muscles, bearing it away like smoke on the wind. Catheryn fights the urge to roll her eyes and instead rests her forehead against the hard planes of his abdomen. She breathes deep, the dark covering of hair tickling at her nose and tries to ignore the way her entire body clenches at the sensory memory his scent invokes. It’s different, this close. It’s not just metal and armor polish and fresh cut wood. It is musk and sweat and a heavy tang that tastes of deep in the earth.

“My lady…” Confusion and want, mingled so deeply that they taste sour and sweet on her tongue.

“Just you, Thom,” Catheryn murmurs into his skin as her fingers trace the thick scar that mars his lower abdomen. Two healing potions, a lyrium fused mage healing, and then another potion the next day just for good measure and there’s still a permanent mark to prove that he stepped between her and a darkspawn swung maul without hesitation. “I just want you – I want the man that I know you are. Not the one who you used to be or the one you fear you might become again.” Softly she presses a kiss over his navel and then leans back until she can look him in the eyes. They’re watching her intently, so intently she fears she might break from it, the swirls of pale blue and green dancing around the silver edged darkness of his pupils.  “You are a good man, a better man than you were. You have made sure of it.”

He shakes his head, his fingers stroking the hair back from her face. “That was you, my lady.”

“No. That was all you,” she corrects gently. “You can’t force someone to change, Thom. They have to want it. You wanted it. I just helped you see that it was actually possible,” Catheryn turns and plants a soft kiss on the callused palm of his hand, whispering, “You did everything else. You’re a good man with a good heart.”

He doesn’t believe her. She can see it on his face, in the sad little smile that pulls at his lips as he cradles her face between his hands. But that’s alright, she thinks as she shuts her eyes and leans into his touch. Perhaps the fact that she knows it will be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can totally blame my husband for Dorian and Bull's... um... obsession with doing it in public places. Mainly because way back in "Not Broken, Just Bent" when I implied that they did it on Cullen's desk he started throwing out other ideas- "If there doing it there you better believe they're doing it on the War Table. And the Throne. Ooooh.... I bet they've done on Solas' desk!..." *imagine suggestions continuing for a good five minutes*
> 
> Also, I'd originally planned on ending this slice with the card game. I had some vague notation for "possible moment with Thom afterwards????" scribbled in my notes but the characters had very different ideas. So I did what any good author does. I shut up and got out of their way, lol. 
> 
> There's one more chapter after this one and then this slice is done. Not 100% sure when the next slice will start posting because my muse packed her bags and went gods only know where for most of December and the first part of January. She's back and we're rolling along now at a good clip so hopefully I'll have a better idea next week about when that one will start posting.


	8. Passion That We Can't Hold Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

“This is totally not how I thought this night was going to end,” Catheryn murmurs drowsily, her words half muffled by muscle and flesh of Thom’s chest. He is warm, hot even, beneath her cheek as she listens to the steady drumming of his heart. It’s soothing – one of the most soothing sounds in the world. It means that he’s here, alive, and not going anywhere. The warmth of Cullen’s chest pressed against the line of her spine and the lazy circles he’s caressing across the bare skin of her hip offers the same reassurance.

Thom’s flesh shakes with the depth of the laughter that rumbles out of his chest. “It’s not quite what I had in mind either,” he admits as he lifts one hand to trail a finger down the curve of her arm, goosebumps pebbling in the wake of his touch. “Especially not after all the effort Cullen and I put forth to get him naked.”

Some vague humming noise of assent is halfway out of her mouth before she freezes. “… what now?” she asks a little loudly, bolting upright – or upright enough that she can at least get a good look at Thom’s face. The grip of their arms and the thread of their muscular legs through hers are enough to pull her up short, her head and shoulders barely making it up from Thom’s chest.

“Maker’s breath, I’m bloody terrible at cards,” Cullen mutters into her spine, lips curving against her skin. “But I’m not _that_ terrible.”

“But… you… but…” she sputters, thrashing and twisting until she manages to get a good look at his face. Her stoic, steady Commander is looking equal parts smug and sheepish, his cheeks pink even as his lips twitch in a very self-satisfied grin. “You _planned_ that?”

“Well not _that_ exactly…” Thom begins with another amused huff.

“…It seemed like a good opportunity at the time,” Cullen mutters, surging forward so that his face is buried against her skin again. “Though that was probably the beer talking. I need to stop letting Dorian buy me drinks.” Beneath the golden disarray of curls his ears a bright, startling red.

Laughing silently Catheryn twists and shimmies in their grip until she can kiss him, her mouth soft against his. “Planned or not, it was a glorious sight,” she whispers against his lips.

Cullen kisses her back and a little thrill races through her, spiking the flames in her veins as Thom presses his mouth to the curve of her neck and slowly moves his lips upward with soft kisses and sharp, quick nips of his teeth until she can feel his breath, hot and moist in her ear. “The sun isn’t up yet, my lady,” and there’s something in the deepening of his voice that makes her entire body jerk between them.

“No… it’s…not…” she manages to gasp out as he bites down on her ear lobe and tugs. “ _Fuck_.” The rumble of their laughter is enough to make her squirm, a sudden flood of liquid leaking between her legs.

“Is this what you want?” Cullen asks and it takes her a moment to realize that he’s not talking to her. His golden eyes are fixed over her head, gaze steady as he waits for an answer.

“Yes,” Thom whispers into her hair. “If you will have me…” Catheryn’s heart lurches in her chest at the forlorn sound and she moves, arching  so that she can turn her face up towards his, her fingers tangling in the short, thick strands of his hair and tugging his head down so that she can kiss him. Sharp, hungry, desperate kisses. Desperate for him to know how much she wants him here, how she never stopped wanting him here, not even when he left, not even when she thought he wanted nothing to do with her or the child she had carried.  “ _Yes_ ,” he breathes into her mouth before he raises his head enough to meet Cullen’s unwavering gaze. “This is what I want.”

The answering smile that spreads across Cullen’s face is enough to tempt Andraste herself into sin.

 

* * *

 

  _Hands_ , Catheryn thinks wildly as she arches. She’d failed to account for the fact that there’d be two sets of hands. Two sets of talented, capable hands – hands that belong to men who know her well.  She’d managed, with an embarrassing amount of ease, to think of two mouths and – _Maker_ – two cocks and what they might do to her with them with them. But she’d failed to account for their fucking hands.

Stupid really.

But so, _so_ good.

 Maker, they’ve barely touched her. It’s only been a few desperate, heated moments since Cullen grinned at her and made her entire body shake with anticipation. She’d eased down from her earlier arousal, content to snuggle between them and hold the men she loves as they hold her, to chase away the demons and nightmares that reign inside their minds.

Apparently not.

Now that they’re touching her again, touching her for something other than safety and comfort and _I am here_ she can’t breathe. She can’t think. It’s as if every ounce of desire that’s been shuttered away during the worries and preparation of the past week have been let loose. The flames of earlier have been fanned into an inferno and she’s so, so close. So fucking close.

She keens sharply, the wail of her pleasure echoing around the room as Cullen bites down on her breast and draws her nipple into his mouth. The teasing flick of his tongue is almost too much, the touch almost too tender in comparison to the grip of his teeth.  She clutches at him, the fingers of one hand woven through his hair as she arches into his touch. 

Her other hand is behind her, clutching at Thom’s shoulder so tightly that her short, blunt nails leave marks in the tanned, scarred expanse of his skin. He’s solid and warm against her back, and almost still, one hands splayed across her hip to hold in her in place, and the other buried between her legs. His deep, breathless chuckle washes over – a pleased, primal sound – as she grinds back against him, rocking her hips in a desperate attempt to provoke him to fuck her harder, faster, deeper. Any or all of the above. Andraste’s flaming tits, something, _anything._

The movements of his fingers are slow and sure, almost casual, as they just barely press into her before withdrawing again, the callused pads of his fingers caressing the slick, tender walls. It’s mind numbingly delicious, faint bursts of pleasure that could take hours to build her up. It’s also agonizing because she’s already there, just a step from the edge and begging to fall over it and he’s petting her like he would an absentminded kitten who’d appeared and pounced on his boots.

“Thom…” her whimper catches in her throat, dissolving into a wail as Cullen rolls her other nipple between her fingers and she thrashes again between them, caught between wanting to move upward, closer to the stimulation that Cullen seems willing to provide and wanting to thrust backwards, to grind and to move, to chase the pleasure that Thom is withholding from her. On any other night, any other day she’d enjoy the game. She’d enjoy the torturous hunt and the chase for release, both hers and theirs.  But not tonight. Not today. She’s worn too thin, scraped too raw. The card game had been a welcome distraction, a soothing balm laid across her soul, but this… she needs this. She needs them.

“ _Please_ ,” her voice breaks as she begs, willing them to understand. “I _need_ … I…”

“We’ve got you,” Thom’s voice is ragged with desire in her ear and the hot rush of it does funny things to her heart. “We’ve got you, love.”

Cullen pulls off her nipple with an audible _pop_ and pants against her chest. “We’re right here,” he growls and she can feel his voice more than hear it: the deep rumble of an avalanche moving down the mountain.  “I promise you, we are right here.” His fingers are deft and sure, traveling in light, lingering touches down the curve of stomach and hips. “We’re right here,” he repeats as his fingers trace her folds and flutter over the stiff, throbbing nub.  It’s light, so light, but the touch is enough to make her sob in relief, actual tears trailing down her cheeks.

Catheryn screams loud enough to wake half of Skyhold, keening and raw, as Thom’s fingers plunge into her harsh and hard and wonderful, crooking his fingers to hit that spot that makes her eyes cross and her entire body hum and jerk.  She clutches at him, feels her nails break his flesh, feels herself draw blood in her desperation to hold him, to keep him from the sudden fear that if she doesn’t that he will leave her and vanish like smoke.  She screams again as he Cullen rolls her between his fingers, the gentle pressure just enough to make her fly apart.

“Beautiful,” Thom breathes against her neck as she lolls against him, pleasure and relief making her body limp and pliant. “So fucking beautiful. I need… I _need…_ ”

“Yes. Please. Now.” Catheryn shudders and tries to move, tries to find a way to get where he needs her. “Why are you still in your _blighted_ clothes?” she snarls as she shifts her ass against him, feeling the length of him rub her. She’s wet, so wet that she slips and slides over the leather as surely as if she’d greased it and Thom groans, jerking against her.

“Fuck if I know,” he mutters.

The air of the room is cold against her back but Catheryn can’t help but turn into the chill of the room and watch as he scrambles off the edge of the bed. Swallowing, Thom catches her eye as she turns, holding it while he peels off his breeches and soft cotton smalls baring him to her gaze. He’s as thick as she remembers, the tip of his cock purple and flushed as it strains towards his stomach. Still holding her gaze he raises his hand, palm still glistening with the slick of her arousal, and cups his balls. His own breath stuttering, he rolls them between his fingers before he grips his dick and strokes it idly.

“My lady?”

Catheryn lets out a noise that may or may not be a screeched, begging “ _Please!_ ” as she pushes herself upright, hands fisting themselves in the sheets so she doesn’t reach out for him. So she doesn’t go to him. So she doesn’t crawl across the mussed sheets and swallow him down until she’s gagging, until he’s so far down her throat that she’ll taste him for days.

There will be other nights for that.

“Shit,” he breathes, momentarily gripping his cock so hard that his knuckles turn white. “I… I need you,” he repeats, but there’s warning in his voice. “It’s… it’s not going to be gentle or pretty or…”

Catheryn turns and with a little bit of help from Cullen, untangles the sheets from her legs, and drops to her elbows, thrusting her ass in the air facing Thom. Looking over her shoulder she’s gratified to see his mouth slack with desire, his gaze trained at the dripping offering she presents to him like a starving man approaching a feast. “ _Fuck. Me_ ,” she orders, baring her teeth as she bites off each word, her voice a crack of command – consent and desire that not even a self-loathing ex-chevalier can ignore.

“Andraste save me,” he mutters and then he is on the bed, on _her_ , his fingers grabbing at her hip and holding her while he sheaths himself in one smooth, hard thrust.

 

* * *

 

Maker’s fucking balls, he’s not going to last. It’s too hot, too tight, too fucking wet. He’s died and gone to paradise. He’s stumbled across a blighted Desire demon and she’s given him everything he wants and he doesn’t fucking care. He doesn’t deserve this, doesn’t understand why they want him here, with them, but that doesn’t stop him from groaning at the sight of his cock disappearing into her body.

                Gorgeous, so fucking gorgeous.  The curve and cushion of her ass tapering to the tightness of her waist and the heaviness of her breasts that he can feel swing beneath her with each thrust. The spill of her hair across her shoulders and the sheets as she clutches at them, her face buried in her forearms. Her cries are still loud enough to echo, reverberating around the room with each drive of his body.

“Yes, please… I need… I need to feel you,” she gasps out as she thrusts back against him, her inner walls rippling around his intrusion, gripping at him and trying to pull him deeper. “I need to know this is real.”

Thom’s breath catches in his throat as her words sink in, his gaze unerringly rising from the spill of her hair and the white-knuckled grip she has on the sheets to the eyes of the man kneeling across from him. Cullen’s own knuckles are white, gripping at the loose fabric that stretches over his knees. The muscles in his arms are twitching from the effort to hold himself back, to let them have at least a small moment.

“I’m not going to last,” Thom grunts in warning. “So if you’re going to join us…”

Cullen laughs hoarsely. “I’ll not last either.”

And somehow that makes Thom feel better about... everything.

It’s easy, so easy to keep pounding into her body, his hands tight on her hips as he watches the Commander slide his hands through her hair and gather it in his fist.  Catheryn keens, her entire body jerking and clenching around him as Cullen hauls her up until she’s forced to release the sheets and plant the palms of her hands on the bed even as he shoves his loose cotton breeches down enough to let his cock bob free.

Even from here, balls deep in Catheryn’s cunt, he can see the precum weeping from the swollen pink tip.

“Open,” Cullen whispers, pressing it to her lips and with a groan she does. She opens and lets him slide in, lets him use the hand in her hair to direct her, to pull her down the length of his cock and then let her back up.

Thom swallows. Hard.

Fuck, but that is hot.

He can see the way her throat works, the way her cheeks hollow as she wraps her lips around Cullen’s shaft and he can’t stop the groan that falls from his mouth. “Not helping,” he manages to gasp out as he feels that familiar tingle beginning to gather at the base of his spine.

With shaking fingers he reaches around her body to her clit, catching its slick surface between his fingers. He needs to feel her, needs to feel the clench and tremble around his cock and not just his fingers. He needs to hear her scream around a mouth stuff full of Cullen’s cock. He needs, he needs, he _needs…_

Catheryn bucks beneath him, her entire body jerking like he’d touched it with a brand, and _Maker_ , her screams are everything he’s remembered and more. The clutch of her so tight as she ripples around him more than he can bear. He drops over her back, mouthing up her spine, and fucks into her as hard as he can.

“Once more, love,” he begs, voice ragged in her ear. This close he can hear the wet noises of Cullen sliding into her mouth, can see the tremble of the jaw and the line of spittle that trails down her chin. He can smell the other men – musky and sweet and astringent, like candy and medicine all rolled into one – and he can smell her, the sweat slick of her sweat salty beneath his tongue as he licks down the curve of her neck. “Come for us once more.”

She shakes her head a little, jerking wildly in Cullen’s grip, but he can already feel the humming tension building each rocking, rough stroke of his cock inside of her. He can feel her dangling, hanging by a thread as Cullen fucks into her mouth, the whimpers escaping around his cock with each drag against her hair screaming _Close! Close! Close!_

So he does what he’s been wanting to do for months, been aching for so much that he wakes sometimes with his smalls sticky with spend and his pillow clutched between his teeth.

He bites down on the curve of her neck, in the soft, meaty place where throat meats shoulder, and she screams and clenches down on him once more, which sets off a fire in gut.

“Fuck,” he swears, letting go of her to rise up on his knees and wrap his hand around his cock.

He doesn’t even need to touch himself, doesn’t need the rough jerk of his fingers, but he does it anyway, the force of his own release washing through him and making his eyes roll up in his head as he paints thick, creamy lines against the pale expanse of her back.

 “ _Maker’s breath_ …” Cullen swears and he can hear the harsh panting and desperate growls of the other man coming to completion.

 It’s hard to open his eyes but he does. He manages it in time to see the Commander pull from her mouth and watch her throat contract and bob as she swallows, tongue darting out to catch the line of semen that dribbles across her chin.

 He swears again, the sight alone enough to send his dick jerking again, liquid oozing from its softening tip. He catches it between his thumb and forefinger and leans forward, propping himself up on a shaking arm, and presses his fingers to her lips.

 She takes them as she slumps against the bed, moaning softly as she licks them clean, taking that little bit of him into her too.

 “Thom…” she catches his hand in her own when he finally takes it away. “I love you.”

 It’s easy to fall to the bed once he's cleaned himself from her back and pull her to him. Easy to press her against his body and kiss her until the taste of her mouth and of Cullen is spread across his tongue.

“I love you too,” he whispers, conscious of the tears on his cheeks and Cullen’s hand on his head in silent benediction.

That night, for the first time in a long time, there are no nightmares.

Not for Cullen. Not for Catheryn. And not for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Hopefully this chapter reads as well as it sounded in my head. Thank you all so much for reading, commenting, and leaving kudos. It never fails to make my day!
> 
> Writing on the next piece, " _Bound_ ", is moving along well so I'm comfortable setting a post date of **March 6** for the first chapter. I know that's a month from now - SORRY! - but I'm hoping to not only finish it up and give it any necessary tweaks but to get out ahead of my posting a bit so that there's not such a long wait between slices again.


End file.
